Devolution
by Baffoonery
Summary: World War Two ended in 1945... but the Third World War was just getting started. It's 2045 now, marking the one-hundred year anniversary of the Third World War. Black Europe separates the superpower Japan from the States of Unova. Government is breaking down. Crime is rife. The religions of old are falling away. Japan is not yet at war with itself, but that's about to change.
1. commencement

**DEVOLUTION: **Descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state.

* * *

**A/N **The following story takes specific tidbits of the Pokemon canon and _runs with it. _There are references to real-life scenarios and places. This story borrows from the idea that Unova* = America, and the other in-game regions = Japan. It's fantastical and makes vague connections, but it's personal headcanon, and I wanted to share it with you. I hope you like it.

* UNOVA: United States of America. So yeah, they'd be more cities than just Castelia and whatnot.

* * *

As the RMS Orion cut across the Atlantic Ocean in only her fourth day of travel, Jean McCardell was violently sick over the side of the ship.

It wasn't the first – and most likely wouldn't be the last – time she'd lost her breakfast. Jean thought she would have gotten used to it by now. As she stared miserably down at the glassy waves, she tried to vain to think of something other than the churning in her gut.

"I hate the sea," she muttered weakly to herself.

"Jean, darling? Oh, _no_, don't tell me you've been sick _again._"

The girl in question summoned what energy remained and twisted slowly around, her hands still clutching the white railing like a lifeline. Her mother gave her a disapproving look, arms crossed tightly over her crisp navy uniform, the weak autumn sunlight sliding over the gold buttons. Jean managed a watery smile.

Mother frowned and moved closer, uncurling a hand to rub brisk circles on Jean's back. "We only have two more days to go, darling," Clara McCardell reminded her daughter, "do try and keep a lid on things. You're likely to frighten Richard off at this rate."

Ignoring her mother, Jean leant back over the railing, took a few deep gulps of the icy sea air, and straightened up, her mother's hand peeling off her back like old paint. She raised a shaking hand to her lips and ran her fingers along them, hoping that she wasn't totally repulsive. She smelt her fingers.

"There we go." Clara caught Jean's eye and smiled tightly. "Now, why don't you go get freshened up? We're expected in the ballroom at eight. It's already six."

Jean wiped her clammy hands on her skirt as Clara peered worryingly at the sea below. Jean waited a moment, though she didn't know what for.

When Clara looked back at her daughter, her expression dissolved into a look of mild irritation.

"Jean, darling, go _now, _otherwise you won't be ready in time."

Jean went.

* * *

The ballroom of the RMS Orion was the most opulent ever to be installed in an ocean liner. Eight crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting a fuzzy, warm glow over the sumptuous scarlet wallpaper and cool marble flooring. The weight of this room alone is likely to sink us, Jean thought wryly.

At her mother's request, she'd changed out of her woollen travelling skirt and into an orange evening dress with three-quarter length sleeves and a boat-neckline. It had been very fashionable in Nimbasa before they left on this infernal voyage.

Jean meandered around the room, already bored out of her mind. It was positively full to burst with a great array of people, most of them sailors. The ship had originally been a simple passenger liner to Liverpool, but at the last moment had to accommodate a couple hundred young men for the current crises in Rotterdam. Jean didn't read the newspaper (she preferred her girl's comics), but she'd overheard 'the men' saying something about a desperately planned German airstrike that had desecrated the harbour and wiped out half the navy's pokémon reserves.

Speaking of pokémon… After making a hurried check of her evening purse, Jean skirted around the edge of the room, dodging around the gigantic circular dining tables, and made her way up the brief flight of stairs to the mezzanine floor. Here the elite usually remained, like peacocks on high, clustered in little groups for safety. The upper-class disliked being on the ground floor among the sailors; her mother called them 'sea-rats'.

Jean quickly found her parents. Her mother was standing talking to three men, all in navy uniform, like herself. Clara wasn't exactly part of the military – due to the McCardell's 'situation' her mother had taken an honorary position among the higher ranks of the American navy. Jean doubted her mother could even row a boat.

Harry McCardell stood beside his wife, but though he was in close proximity, he had a faraway look on his bearded face. He wasn't paying attention to the conversation at all. Clara kept glancing at him as if willing him to disappear.

"Papa?"

Jean's father blinked a few times, dazed, before focusing on her face. A hesitant smile appeared.

"Jeanie, sweetheart." He blinked again, his thick eyebrows wrinkling like disgruntled caterpillars. Harry shook his head, as if his ears were full of water, before stepping away from his wife. His expression cleared, a well-practised mask of benign fatherly affection clipping into place.

"Papa, have you seen Billy's pokéball?" Jean asked, keeping her voice clear and a little louder than normal. Harry hadn't been himself for a few months now. She'd long learned that patience and pretending her father was deaf was the only way to get any response.

"Billy?" Harry echoed. He stared at wonder into Jean's eyes before looking around him suddenly, as if expecting her pokémon to materialize in an instance. "Billy… You know, sweetheart, I don't think I have." Clearly making an effort to remain focused on his daughter, Harry smiled tiredly. "Perhaps he's up in your rooms."

Jean knew better than to push for any more information. She stepped around her father, her high heels clicking delicately on the marble, before stopping just at Clara's elbow. She waited politely.

It was a few minutes before her mother noticed her. Clara broke off the conversation abruptly to look at Jean. The three men she was with – Jean recognized the fat one; he was the captain – eyed her mother greedily. Jean knew why. Her mother was a very attractive woman.

"Darling, yes, what is it." Clara glanced at the men, raising her eyebrows as if to say _oh, children._

"Would you happen to know where Billy is?"

Clara frowned; probably misconstruing Jean's hurried tone for rudeness.

"He's _your _pokémon, darling. I haven't the faintest." Her mother's eyes zeroed in on Jean's hair and pushed a heavy brown lock back into place. "But do find him, won't you, Jean? He needs more attention than you give him. I keep telling you this," she added, giving Jean an exasperated look. "Now, leave us adults and go find Richard. Find Billy together, darling, I don't know."

Clara turned her back on Jean and slipped back into the conversation with hardly a blink. Jean glanced at her father, dismissed his vague expression, and headed back into the throng of pampered aristocrats.

The last thing she wanted to do was to find Richard, or 'Dickie', as she called him. They were to be married when they got to Japan; the arrangement had only been made last season, when the McCardell's had visited Dickie's family up in Castelia for Thanksgiving. Jean supposed he was _okay, _if she was completely honest with herself. But she couldn't shake that he was five years older than her and had a moustache.

But mother kept bringing his name up in conversation in a pointed sort of way… And it wouldn't do, Jean supposed reluctantly, to ignore her fiancé so. They'd only said about ten words to one another the entire trip.

He could always chaperone her to her rooms. Jean had to be chaperoned almost everywhere. She kicked herself for forgetting Billy's pokéball - her mother didn't like the idea of a young girl wandering the ship with all these sailors hanging about.

Jean stopped at the brass railing of the mezzanine and looked out over the rest of the ballroom below. The sailors laughed and joked amongst themselves with such easy camaraderie. She turned back to look at the Mr-and-Mrs-so-and-sos. They all looked uncomfortable and petulant when they thought no one was looking, their champagne glasses held daintily before them like thorned roses, great ropes of jewels slung about the women's necks and sagging medals pinned to the men's tuxedoes. For an instant, Jean felt sad for them all.

She leant against the railing and scanned the crowd for Richard. He was like a lighthouse beacon; people were helplessly drawn to him, their eyes sliding across a room, desperately seeking his company.

Jean spotted him over by the swanna ice sculpture. He was talking to Hanna Stone, her pink face even pinker, delighted by her conversation partner. She kept licking her lips.

Exhaling heavily through her nose, Jean forced herself to go over to the couple. Richard saw her coming and raised his glass in greeting; his expression never wavered away from his default _isn't this a wonderful day _look. Hanna noticed Jean at the last moment. Her smile faltered.

"What a pleasant surprise!" Dickie exclaimed happily, taking Jean's offered hand and bestowing an eager kiss. "Hanna, I believe you have met my fiancé, Jean McCardell?"

"A pleasure," Hanna replied, eyes hard and smile fixed. "I'll leave you be. Good evening Richard, Miss McCardell."

"Thank you for rescuing me!" Dickie breathed once Hanna was out of earshot, ducking down to Jean's eye level. He raised his glass again in thanks and took an enthusiastic slurp. "Apparently her father's in steel pokémon. I had to act terribly interested." Straightening, he reached for a fruit platter on the buffet table, popped a cherry into his mouth. "This new idea of pokémon specialisation is really quite something, is it not? Imagine, years from now, people might make training pokémon an _occupation, _not a _hobby_! What a hoot! But come now, Jean, my love," he held her gaze, smiling warmly, "can I get you anything? Glass of champagne? _Sake_? I do adore this Kantonese cuisine. It's so _foreign_."

Jean couldn't help giggling at Dickie's conversation. He gave the impression of being stupid as a psyduck, and maybe he was, but she knew it was a million times better than being married to someone who was sharp in words and actions. Dickie moved like molasses, his twangy Castelian accent at a contrast with his summertime smiles. He was nineteen, she fourteen, and he treated her like a little sister. They were getting married in Hearthome City, in Sinnoh – a lifetime away from their current European destination, Rotterdam. Once they arrived in Holland they were travelling up to St Petersburg within a matter of days and then boarding the Trans-Siberian railway. Despite her reluctance to get to Japan (and the wedding), Jean could hardly wait: she had longed to travel by train for as long as she could remember.

Suddenly, she remembered what her mission was. "Dickie, could you help me find Billy? I left his pokéball in my rooms. I need you to come with me." It was safe to employ a sloppy speaking style around Richard. He found her childish mannerisms amusing.

Moustache crinkling, Richard grinned at her. He abandoned his champagne by the ice sculpture and offered his arm. "I would be honoured. Come on, my little ducklett – onwards!"

They slipped quietly out of the ballroom (well, as quietly as one could when _the _Richard Oak was on one's arm) and started the winding trek to the upper floors. Jean had a suite a few floors from the top of the ship. It had a magnificent view.

Dickie nattered away companionably, blathering on about the essay he'd just had published on pokémon domestication. Not many people really trained pokémon; it was a small-time hobby, akin to rapidash riding or shopping. Jean didn't mind spending time with Billy, but she much preferred reading her comics. Mother thought differently. Richard had given Billy to her as a wedding present – his father was one of the few aristocrats who truly enjoyed pokémon breeding – and Jean _had _to pretend to be overjoyed at the prospect of cleaning and feeding and looking after a deadly creature with knives for hands for the sake of the imminent Oak-McCardell union. Billy wasn't vicious towards _her_, but he sure scared other people off when they came too close. Dickie said Billy was going to be her bodyguard, now that they were to be married. Jean didn't really understand what getting married to Richard Oak had to do with her safety.

"Oh, my dear, have you heard of the Rotterdam crises?" Dickie put on his best mournful expression and clutched at his heart dramatically. "It's simply _awful, _is it not? Father was most displeased at the whole spectacle. You know, he still thinks that pokémon should be considered partners, not weapons. I'm not entirely sure what to think myself, darling. But the thought of pokémon blasting the Nazis to bits… Listen to me! This is hardly conversation for my wife -"

"I don't mind," Jean interrupted hurriedly. Pokémon could blast people to bits?

Dickie eyed her doubtfully as they turned a corner, the low lamps along the corridor casting a gloomy, furry light. "My love, I don't want to distress you. I know how hard this journey has been on you so far. I'd like to think we'll arrive in Japan in one piece. Are these your rooms, sweetmeat?"

Displeased that she hadn't interrogated Richard further, Jean fumbled in her purse and unlocked the massive wooden door with her key. Almost before she'd pushed the door open, there was a shrill exclamation from inside.

Rolling her eyes, Jean opened the door and flicked on the lights.

Billy stood in the middle of the vast, opulent room, his head bowed and eyes trained on his mistress with an expression of utter relief. The pawniard murmured something and shuffled forwards, his gaze ducking from the floor to her.

"What have you done now?" Jean could hardly disguise her exasperation. On the ground off to the side, next to the French imported wingback chair, lay the sad two halves of Billy's pokéball. Richard cried out in alarm and rushed forwards to scoop the remains up.

"How on Earth – Oh, father will be anguished to see this." Dickie raised the broken pokéball up to his eyes and studied it. "It looks like it's be sliced clean through. But how could Billy have done such a thing?" He glanced at Jean's pawniard curiously. "He's been in his pokéball the whole night, hasn't he, Jean, my love?"

Jean shrugged, sulky. Now she'd have to take Billy down to the ballroom with her. Mother would have a fit. She hated pokémon at the table.

The pawniard moved closer to his mistress and took one of her hands carefully in his own sharp palms. That was one of the things Jean found most frightening about her pokémon; he didn't have hands.

Billy muttered something in his tongue and started to gently stroke the back of her palm with the blunt side of his knife-hands. Bowing his head, he touched his mouth to her hand, making sure to keep the small blade protruding from his forehead away from her skin, looking the very definition of apologetic.

Dickie looked like he was about to swoon. Jean thought her fiancé's weak spot when it came to pokémon was one of his less-distinguished features.

"Yes, alright," Jean snapped, moving her hand away and crossing her arms across her chest. She didn't know it, but she was the very image of her mother. "Come on, Dickie, we ought to get back downstairs. We'll miss the first course."

Richard held up the pokéball hopefully. "My angel, do you mind if I take this with me? I've half a mind to mail it to father once we reach Rotterdam. He knows the man who invented pokéballs, you know. They might be able to give us some answers."

Jean shrugged again, looking very much her age. She turned to leave, but stopped at the mirror beside the door to her suite, examining her reflection. Perhaps mother would like it more if her hair was out?

Just as Jean felt Billy's knife-hand hesitantly brush against the skirt of her dress, seeking further forgiveness, the room was plunged into darkness.

And just as suddenly, the lights came on again.

Jean whirled around to face Richard, who looked utterly bewildered. Frowning, she opened her mouth to say _I thought this ship was the best of its kind _at the same time the lights flickered again, bobbing between utter blackness and an orange glow.

In the silence, there was a terrible, echoing groan that shook the floor and made the glass in the windows rattle.

Jean grabbed Billy's shoulder to steady herself. The pawniard's knives shot outwards, suddenly thirty centimetres long; he growled menacingly, his eyes darting all over the room.

"My sweet, are you alright?" Dickie stuffed the pokéball halves into the pockets of his black trousers and staggered over to her as the floor of the ship gave another dying moan. "Perhaps we ought to leave, go back to the ballroom – safety in numbers and what have you -"

The floor rumbled again, this time causing some furniture to slide across the room. Dickie yelped and grabbed Jean's left arm. With the other hand, he brought out his own pokéball and managed to unscrew it, releasing his herdier with a flash.

The stout canine pokémon gave a gruff woof in greeting before bracing itself against another quake.

"We're leaving!" With Dickie on one side and Billy on the other, Jean managed to steer them out into the corridor. The ship was now quaking from side to side slowly. She felt a tide of bile swell in her throat.

Swallowing thickly, she started moving down the hall, completely off-balance. Billy moved in front of her, his big helmeted head swaying sickeningly on the slender stem of his neck. Dickie had one arm now around her waist, the other grabbing at the walls for some semblance of normality, his herdier dashing up ahead and lurching around a corner.

"Reg! Reginald!" Richard called in distress. "Come back here!"

Billy suddenly stopped and moved backwards, his arms stretching out either side of him to shield Jean and Dickie.

"Billy, what -"

There was a brief moment where the air before Billy seemed to shimmer before there was a _blip, _and Harry McCardell's duosion was hovering in the middle of the corridor.

The pawniard gave a warning snarl and clashed his hands together, making an ear-splitting screech of metal-on-metal.

Father's duosion barely looked at Billy, its big, liquid-black eyes staring at Jean.

"It's the Nazis!" Richard breathed in terror.

Suddenly, duosion was right in front of her, the green gooey nebula had encasing them all and she barely had time to take a breath before the hallway of the RMS Orion instantly disappeared around them and she was staring out at the Atlantic Ocean with wet rock beneath her feet and the twinkling lights of Liverpool behind her, thinking _It's just like the Titanic._

* * *

Jean learned later from duosion that the ship's engines had exploded. The rumbling they had felt moments before they'd been teleported to safety was the gaskets blowing, seconds before the entire bottom half of the RMS Orion had lifted sky-high.

She tried to force her father's duosion to go back and find her parents, but the pokémon had stared at her dumbly in response. Secretly, Jean knew that it was hopeless. Duosion belonged to her now.

Richard had sent a letter off to his father in Castelia city. He asked for permission to continue onto to Japan with Jean; his father had said yes. Richard said to her that they were starting life anew, that this was the great turning point of their young lives.

"We'll always remember that day," he said in their train compartment, Jean watching the icy landscape flashing by like a dream, "we'll always remember the twentieth of May, 1940."

The day that the RMS Orion exploded, it had been a week since the Rotterdam Blitz. Three hundred Unovian sailors had died in the ship's disaster.

As Jean and Richard knew this to be the turning points in their lives, eventually the history books would call it the turning point of the Second World War. The calamity of the RMS Orion wasn't recorded as a fluke, but as a secret bombing mission by the axis powers. Mollified, the Germans had taken this catastrophe under their wing and taken the blame for the bombing. It rallied the Nazi troops and their allies, and in 1943, as Jean and Richard celebrated their third wedding anniversary safely in Sinnoh, England was overthrown. Still fumbling to pick up the pieces after the RMS Orion Event, Unova hastily declared neutrality and cut itself off from the world, the very image of isolationism.

But when the European forces – now governed entirely by the Nazis – stormed across southern Europe towards Asia, Japan declared war. In 1945, it was no longer the Second World War: humanity had now encountered the Third World War, Japan versus the Nazi behemoth.

It became known as the Sixty Years War, and later, also the Cold War. Unova was safe across the ocean, watching these two enemies duke it out with devastating effects. When it seemed like they could go no further, when the Nazis were teetering on the easternmost edge of Asia, only a hair's breadth away from their destination, Japan introduced the genetically-altered mewtwo into the fray.

It's 2045 now, the hundred-years anniversary of the Third World War. Jean and Richard Oak are long dead, as is their grandson Samuel Oak. The world is split into two countries: Japan, with its super-colonies of Sinnoh, Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn, and the States of Unova. The Pacific Ocean is a treacherous, pokémon-infested wasteland, miles upon miles of uncross-able water. The only continent that lies between them is Black Europe, a charred, desolate wasteland of human and pokémon remains. Some harsh tribes live on the land, but it was officially declared a no-access zone in 2006.

Pokémon training has boomed in popularity, the devastating mortality rates glossed over by colourful television shows and video games. Pokémon themselves are dangerous creatures, not impossible to train, but hardened by generations of combat. Some people, like the Oak family, believe pokémon should be loved; and indeed, their philosophy has filtered down into the many cults of Japan. But here, military power is paramount, and Japan is a superpower.

There is a class divide unlike any other. Japan is not yet at war with itself, but that's about to change.

It's 2045. Welcome to Hell.


	2. hubris

**MABLE STONE**

* * *

Devon Corporation had eclipsed Silph Co. at the turn of the century. Once, Kanto had been the technological cornerstone of Japan; some cited the Kantonese decline began with the eruption on Cinnabar Island back in 2004, five months before mewtwo was introduced into the Third World War. It was too much, they said, invaluable research had been destroyed. As it was a branch of Silph Co., the loss of Cinnabar was the final blow that brought the company to its knees.

To the elite Stone family, that was good news.

For most of the Cold War, Devon had been struggling to keep up with Silph Co. It was only when news of an Unovian space rocket launching into space did Hoenn finally pull in front with the successful endeavours of the Hoenn Space Project, based in tropical Mossdeep city.

Now, Saffron city had crumbled. It was a hub of crime; a shadow of its former self. But Rustboro? It was once the third largest city in Hoenn, but with the fall of Slateport in the last few years of the Third War, it had risen to the top. Lilycove was now the chief port; an invaluable ally to the Devon Corporation.

When Mable Stone thought of all she had to inherit, she felt giddy. Resisting the urge to giggle to herself or do anything equally as undignified, she coolly put the holographic pad back down on the desk.

Rich sunlight poured into the office. The new trend for stainless steel furniture from Canalave hadn't taken off here, and instead the large room was tastefully decorated with rich wooden pieces. The wood seemed to absorb the sunlight, making the room gleam darkly and expensively. On the walls were old family photographs. Although Mable wanted people to know how up-to-date she was, she refused the installation of holo-photos. They seemed so tacky.

Looking up from the table top, Mable gazed out of the window, taking in the vast view of her office over Rustboro. Since overthrowing Kanto, Devon had expanded inconceivably, taking over the once-humble city and turning it into a veritable metropolis. The city sprawled over the landscape, cutting into the surrounding woodland and, politely refusing involvement in the 2008 Hoenn Conservation Act, had left the surrounding area barren. Rustboro was framed on the west and north by the sea, the eastern expanse covered in the brownstone buildings for miles. To the south lay the Petalburg woods, an unfortunately designated conservation area. Apart from that, Mable rather liked the look of it all; it made the city fierce and fortress-like.

Yawning, the young woman glanced back at the holo-pad, winced at the columns of numbers, then reached for the flat touch-screen of her computer. She tapped a few keys and waited for her secretary to pick up. In a moment, an image of her secretary filled the screen.

"Miss Stone, is there anything I can get for you?"

"Find Steven, would you?" Mable asked, not looking at the screen but instead at her cuticles. "He's probably in the fossil labs, doing God knows what. Just get him here."

"Yes, madam." The image of the secretary vanished, leaving the icon of Devon's logo glaring up from her computer desktop.

Mable inspected her nails for a few more minutes until the door to her office slid open with a quiet swooping sound. The heavy footsteps stopped in front of her desk. Steven cleared his throat.

Looking up, Mable smiled fixedly at her uncle. Steven glowered in response.

Steven Stone had once been the champion of Hoenn. He'd been one of the first trainers to fully harness the steel-type; had been quite the golden boy for a few years. But then, of course, the all-eclipsing dark miasma of the Third War had hauled itself into view, and Steven had dashed off to the League Headquarters in Kanto to join the pokémon alliance – a largely failed attempt on the League's side to get involved in military politics – now deemed by modern historians to be 'a desperate desire to give hobby-pokémon the spoils of war'. Steven had come crawling back to Devon with his tail between his legs, half his pokémon team dead, and had taken up residence as one of Devon laboratory's chief advisors.

His estrangement from the Stone clan hadn't gone over lightly; Mable's grandfather, Steven's father, had all but condemned his eldest son. It was bad enough that Steven had been involved in that 'fad' of pokémon battling, but to abandon Devon? Mable's own father had taken up the Corporation, but had fallen terribly ill a few years ago with some unknown disease. Mable was acting head of Devon until he recovered – though she privately thought it unlikely. There had been reports of a kind of disease randomly striking pockets of society since the end of the Third War. It was like the ripple in the pond, the black mass beneath the surface, waiting for a moment when it all seemed _a bit too quiet _before striking.

Mable didn't like her uncle very much. He was one of the last washed-up remains of the Golden Days of pokémon battling. Just after the Cold War, there had been a move to stop pokémon battling all together – technology was where it was at: just look at mewtwo! Mable wasn't too clear on the details, but the government quickly realised that pokémon battling was now far too ingrained in society – the novelty idea of pokémon battling had filtered into the lower classes, and now every man and his lillipup had dreams of becoming the new pokémon champion. No, the League could no longer take a backseat, not to technology or the will of the people.

But Steven Stone, archangel of the Golden Days, was now no more than a Third War ex-soldier – an unfavourable remnant of the 'old pokémon League' and its messy involvement with politics. The new League was far superior. Steven had been left behind.

"I wanted to hear directly from you," Mable started, her tone falsely cheerful and doting. "Update me on the Big Three, would you?"

The Big Three were Devon's star inventions: the pokémon dream projector, the pokémon transformer, and the pokémon speaker. These three were funded exclusively by the Japanese military. Mable didn't ask questions. If it had Devon's logo on it, that was all that mattered.

Although Steven's mouth was a thin, hard line, his eyes glittered with interest. Mable didn't let him keep the job for nothing. He was obsessed with pokémon.

"The pokémon dream projector is still a little rocky," Steven admitted eventually, his prematurely-arthritic hands hidden in the pockets of his lab coat. "Unless we can get access from pokémon control for a musharna, I doubt we'll get any further."

Travelling between the States of Unova and Japan was still, after all this time, a fight uphill. The transfer of pokémon was even worse – Unova had gotten wind of the Japanese disease ten years ago and rigidly clung to its pokémon preservation laws. Quarantine was hell. Even Devon, with its direct access to the government, had trouble shipping in minor pokémon for their studies.

"The pokémon transformer has made a bit of a breakthrough. Alterations were made to allow a melting of sorts between human and pokémon DNA, which led to astonishing results – a few of our test subjects are now exhibiting…"

Mable glazed over for a bit. She didn't know why she indulged Steven so. He was the sort of guy who you'd give an inch and he'd take a mile.

"…it is incredibly dangerous still, and some subjects have yet to revert back to human form -"

"What about the speaker?" Mable interrupted, barely keeping herself in check. The pokémon speaker was what she was most interested by. Imagine, being able to communicate with pokémon like humans! There'd be no more silly miming or _psychic_ connections. Mable shuddered. Psychic pokémon were frightening. She knew it was fiercely forbidden in Japan, but she couldn't get over the idea of brain control. Horror stories of the Nazi regime were still whispered among the people.

Steven's lips almost disappeared and he looked incredibly irritated at being interrupted. He loathed answering to his jumped-up twenty-something niece. "It might be a little early to say," he said slowly, "but we might have finished."

It took a moment for Mable to cotton on. Once she had, she stared at her uncle is astonishment. "Finished? _Finished?_"

Steven nodded tightly. Mable leapt to her feet, her grin wide. Almost immediately, she checked herself and adopted a politely interested expression. Steven suppressed a smirk.

"Show me," Mable ordered, dusting off her skirt and moving towards the door of her office, not looking to see if Steven was following her or not.

When they reached the end of the long corridor, Mable paused, embarrassed, before Steven moved ahead and navigated their way confidently to the elevators. She seethed.

The glass elevator arrived in a heartbeat. They piled in, Mable's eyes drawn irresistibly to the glorious view before her. Many of the laboratories had at least one wall made entirely of glass; the elevator shaft was like the spine of Devon, each floor visible from the cool, clean world of the lift. There were no stairs in Devon - Mable had made that change when she'd first taken over from her father – so the elevators were designed to move any which way. The entire building was accessed by this state-of-the-art system. Thankfully, the building wasn't powered by electric pokémon (as if they'd make a mistake like Cinnabar), but instead by grass pokémon, utilising the sun's rays on this idyllic spot on the Hoenn coast. There was very little chance of a sunflora going on a rampage, Mable had reasoned.

Silently, the elevator slid down ten floors. The hollow spine of Devon slipped by, the circular glass elevator passage gently illuminated by hidden solar-powered lights. As they reached their destination, Mable turned and caught her uncle's eye.

"Devon is perfect, isn't it?" she commented breathlessly, helplessly, entirely overwhelmed by her family's empire. Steven didn't reply.

Steven led the way out of the elevator, stepping into a wide passage with a curved roof. They walked until three sliding double doors appeared; Steven tapped out an access code and the far right one opened.

The laboratory was colossal. The first level was a small railed platform, the ground floor accessed by a brief flight of stairs. Mable had been in the laboratories herself rarely, and it never failed to surprise her that they were always so _quiet. _The soundtrack was the muted beeping of machines and the clicking of computer keys. Occasionally a pokémon cry could be heard in the backrooms, though they'd reduced their pokémon experiments by a huge margin since that incident a year or two back. Barely any of the fifty or so scientists glanced up as Steven and Mable went down the stairs and walked across the room. One or two acknowledged Steven's presence as one of the head scientists, but no one seemed to see Mable. She started to sulk.

Steven stopped in front of a surprisingly small machine. It rose like a column, connected to the roof of the laboratory, great wires and translucent pipes seamlessly flowing down its length like water. There was a miniature screen at eye level, which Steven activated and started to type in some codes.

After a few minutes, Mable looked around her, bored. "Hurry up, Steven," she snapped. "I have to get back to the accounts."

Without tearing his gaze from the screen, Steven entered a few more streams of numbers, then pressed a button beside a slender opening that looked like a DVD drive. "Release one of your pokémon."

Mable stared at the back of his head, no longer tapping her foot. "One of _my _pokémon?" she clarified, her tone puzzled yet defiant. "I don't think so. Use one of your own."

Steven turned his head to meet her gaze, looking every bit his fifty-odd years. "Mable, I promise you, nothing will happen."

Ruffled because he'd neglected to say _madam _or even _your ladyship, _Mable grumpily brought out a luxury ball and plopped it in Steven's outstretched palm. He gave her a tired look and maximized the sphere himself, pressing the button and releasing her pokémon with a muted white light.

Despite her mood, Mable leapt back a metre. Steven had a chance to shoot her an inquiring look before he was knocked off his feet.

Koda let out an ear-splitting scream. Several of the nearest scientists jumped to their feet in surprise, though soon returned to their work, resigned to dealing with unruly pokémon. Thankfully, the pokémon translator machine was surrounded by a six-metre radius free of machines. Mable dreaded to think how much damage there would be otherwise.

Her lairon screamed again, his thick reptilian tail swinging madly from side to side with enough force to break a man's leg. Koda pawed at the grated floor of the laboratory and raised its head to the roof, snuffling noisily at the air, his big nostrils flaring wetly.

Steven got to his feet unsteadily. Mable didn't help him.

"God, why Koda?" he asked wearily, watching the lairon shake himself like a herdier, the plates of armour on his back clashing together with a sound like cement in a mixer.

"Would you rather I sent out Colbert?" Mable answered tetchily, referring to her baby craniados.

Grimacing, Steven moved back over to the pokémon translator and started pressing a few more buttons. Mable watched Koda in distaste for a moment. Eventually, she sighed, and crouched down to Koda's eye-level, arranging her skirt neatly around her legs.

"Koda," she called, unable to make her voice warm or maternal. Immediately, the lairon stopped gnawing at his hind leg. His head snapped upright, eyes on her. "Here, Koda," she ordered, pointing at the ground in front of her, "come here. I need you." The last words were added as an afterthought. Mable had never thought she'd say _that._

Her lairon licked his lips, the steel snout snapping noisily, then waddled over to her, tail swinging side to side for balance. Koda huffed in her face, breathing rotten meat and clay smelling breath all over her and dribbled on her dress. Mable shrieked and leapt upright, batting at her clothing. Koda whined.

"Okay, here we go." Steven, ignoring Mable's antics, held aloft a slender microchip and a metal gun. He loaded the chip into the gun and pulled something back, like it was a syringe.

"You want to grab him?" he asked Mable. _No, _she thought petulantly, but collared her pokémon anyway, sliding her hands beneath the plates and grabbing his big head with her hands. The scales on his neck were warm and rough. Koda shook his head, bewildered, growling and drooling in confusion. "Shut up," Mable told him.

Steven pressed the gun to the back of the lairon's neck, just beneath the bulge of the huge steel helmet that encased his skull. Steven held his breath, the other hand gripping the rim of one of the shallow holes in his steely cranium.

He pulled the trigger.

Mable flinched away, expecting her pokémon to be nothing but a bloody mess, but instead Koda screamed an otherworldly scream. He launched himself up on his hind legs, shaking his head madly and beating the air with his stubby, elephantine feet.

Landing heavily on the hard floor, Mable gasped in pain. On the other side of Koda, Steven had braced himself against the machine. The expression on his face illustrated exactly what Mable was thinking. _Why did I just inject a microchip into a one-ton adolescent steel-pokémon with very little brain and massive anger issues whilst in the middle of a billion-dollar laboratory?_

Mable glared furiously at Steven, wishing fervently he'd burst into flame.

Instead of rampaging, Koda only landed back on all fours with a hollow _clang. _His tail swung despondently as he lowered his head to the ground, attempting to rub the side of his huge head on the cool grated floor. The lairon whined pitifully, a broken, baby-dinosaur sound.

They waited.

Eventually, Koda gave one last moan and was still. His head was still lowered. A single glob of slobber hit the ground.

Mable stood up. Steven put the gun off to one side and started rapidly tapping at the computer screen, brow furrowed.

"Koda?" Mable inched forward; placed a gentle hand on the lairon's head. "Koda?"

"_Mama?"_

A bolt of fear shot through her. Mable snatched her hand away as if she had been burnt, gaping incredulously down at her pokémon.

Steven had turned around at the guttural, omniscient voice. He caught Mable's eye, looking triumphant. She wanted to hit him.

"_Mama!"_

Mable looked back at Koda. He had raised his heavy head and was now staring at her, huffing her scent and wagging his huge tail.

"_Pain… there… Mama!"_

"Oh, my God." Mable gazed in horror at her pokémon. Steven couldn't help himself; he sniggered.

* * *

After Mable had hurriedly recalled Koda, she'd collared Steven and ordered him to round up the other head scientists involved with the Big Three. She'd dashed back to her office, where, with shaking hands, she'd drawn up an official letter of declaration for _immediate response by the Japanese Military. _The sooner the government knew about the pokémon translator, the better.

Following that, Mable had been briefed by the head scientists about the translator. Apparently, although it was reasonably bug-free, there was no way to fully comprehend a pokémon's speech; there were some words that were simply untranslatable. But overall, the pokémon translator was ready for action.

Mable had dismissed the scientists a while ago, after getting them to sign the bottom of the document and send it off via the traditional mail service. Normally, she'd just email the military office, but this was a special occasion.

Now, she stood in the middle of the underground training facilities.

Devon had several of these stadium-sized arenas in the basement of the building. In fact, Devon had an entire underground maze that stretched beneath Rustboro almost to its current outskirts.

The stadiums were usually used as observation rooms for some of the more rowdy pokémon – the reborn fossilized pokémon, for instance. But Mable had claimed a stadium all for herself at the beginning of the year, when the prospect of owning Colbert had been an irresistible opportunity to expand her hobby into professional status. Sometimes all that paper pushing got so tedious.

It didn't catch on. Mable didn't dislike pokémon, exactly, but she wasn't as good at training as she'd like to be. She had hired ex-champions to train her – even gotten that stuck-up bitch Oskana, the Rustboro gym leader – to help her out. They'd ended up in a screaming match and Mable had set Koda on the other girl. Relations were not as good as they could have been.

The stadium had been updated for the acting head of Devon, turning the great expanse into a gleaming, modern arena. The raked sand underfoot was soft, the walls a gentle off-white, the ceiling covered in numerous tiny lights, like the scales of a yanma wing. The far wall was glass, like the back of a squash court, with a small spectator area, which was now empty.

Taking a deep breath, Mable released all her pokémon.

Actually hearing Koda speak had rattled her, but she was determined to fight past her reservations. She wasn't a Stone for nothing.

Colbert was released first, the baby craniados chirping happily, setting off across the huge arena to explore the new space. Guiltily, Mable remembered that she'd never actually let Colbert into this stadium before. She'd usually spent more time training Kora or Myron.

The second pokémon to materialize shot upwards until it towered ten metres above her. Slowly, the white light disappeared, leaving the gigantic, slightly-reflective form of her steelix, Myron. The massive snake let out a low rumble, its tiny eyes peering down at Mable. She smiled. Out of all her pokémon, Myron had been with her the longest.

Mable couldn't use Myron a lot, though. Due to the restrictions on certain pokémon, she could only battle with Myron in official League circumstances. As a result, Myron was relatively small for a steelix.

As Mable looked back towards the last form of Koda, the lairon charged towards her, slobbering and panting as if completely out of breath.

"Chill _out, _Koda!" Mable squawked, ducking behind Myron's massive frame. Her steelix watched the over-excited lairon with interest.

Skidding to a halt, Koda gazed at Mable, bright blue eyes big and woeful. He whined like a kicked lillipup. When Mable eventually moved out from behind Myron, Koda started panting again happily, tail wagging.

"_Mama!"_

Suppressing the desire to roll her eyes at Koda's infantile name for her, she forced a smile. She wasn't about to kneel down – the lairon was likely to bowl her over in excitement. Mable steadied herself. Am I really about to talk to my pokémon? she wondered desperately.

"Hi, Koda," she said, deliberately slowing her voice.

The lairon stopped moving entirely. His head perked upwards – even his steel maw snapped shut. Koda listened intently to his trainer; Mable realised that this was the first time she'd done something other than shriek.

"Koda, hi," she repeated, now uncertain. What was she supposed to do, exactly? Train him? Teach him some words? Mable's hands were sweaty against Myron's body.

"Er… Okay. Um. Koda, I'm 'mama'. I'm Mable." The girl paused; Koda was totally blank. She pointed to her chest. "_May-bell. _Mable. Mama. Me, mama."

Koda suddenly yapped in response, his tail wagging again. "_Mama!_" The lairon panted in delight and started to shuffle towards her.

Unable to help herself, Mable flinched backwards, further hiding behind Myron. Koda stopped dead, confused.

"_Mama?_"

Astonished, Mable stared at her pokémon. The upwards inflection on the end of her… name… definitely sounded like a question. Despite herself, Mable felt her heart flutter in excitement.

"Yes, Koda. Mama. Me, mama." Mable licked her lips nervously. She inched away from Myron, leaving one hand on the steelix's side. "Koda, come here. It's okay."

Without hesitating, Koda trundled forwards, tail swaying like a palm tree in a storm. The lairon shoved his head against her thigh, making her leg buckle. Dribbling in earnest, Koda beamed up at her. Mable managed a smile, eyes watering in pain.

"Want to do some training, Koda?" she asked slowly. "Battle Myron? Do you want to battle Myron?"

Far above her, Myron rumbled in excitement. Koda let out a stream of growls, which, after a moment, Mable could discern some words.

"_Fight, mama! Yes, fight, no pain, mama, no pain. Fight yes._"

Frowning, Mable placed her fingertips against the back of Koda's neck; he whined once – probably muscle memory – but wagged his tail fervently. "It doesn't hurt anymore, Koda?"

"_No pain, mama. Fight, mama, yes!_"

She shrugged, smiling suddenly in genuine affection. "Alright," she allowed, stroking Koda's neck gently, feeling the slight protrusion of skin covering the microchip. "We'll practice."

Mable turned around and called for Colbert. The cranidos was on the far side of the stadium, digging a hole in the sand. At her voice, Colbert keened in response, but didn't move.

"_Col_bert!"

The craniados yowled, rubbing his head angrily against the sand.

"Colbert, come here!" Mable resisted the urge to cross her arms, instead snapping the order through gritted teeth. She had no idea why some people actively elected to become pokémon breeders. Baby pokémon were impossible; she swore that ninety-percent of the time, they were throwing a tantrum.

"_Brother… here!_" Koda's tone, although to Mable's ears harsh, must have seemed gentle to Colbert, because the craniados only whined loudly a few more times before reluctantly crossing the arena, eyes downcast and tail lowered.

"_Brother, mama yes." _The lairon left Mable's side and bit the back of Colbert's thin neck, growling softly in admonishment. The cranidos keened pathetically, tiny arms flailing against Koda's impenetrable hide. Myron rumbled something; Koda snarled in response.

Mable watched the scene unfold before her, fascinated. She'd seen Koda deliver this alpha behaviour before – Steven had told her that even though Myron was the biggest, Koda was the more assertive – but this… Koda was acting for Mable herself, like he was some deliverer of her commands. It was a bit of a power trip, actually.

Before she let herself get too inflated, Mable told Koda to let Colbert go. The craniados skulked a few feet away from the lairon, tail curved towards Mable in submission.

Mable looked at Koda, who had resumed panting and dribbling and tail-wagging in blissful obedience.

"Good job," she said, her tone reluctantly pleased. "Thanks, Koda."

The lairon caught her eye and growled happily. Mable smiled.


	3. piety

**KANE OSAKA**

* * *

Kane extinguished the last of the candles. Instead of plunging into darkness, it was only after a moment that a sallow golden glow illuminated his surroundings. He turned to look at the unholy apparition behind him.

"My thanks, yamask," he murmured, ducking his head respectfully. His pokémon bobbed silently in mid-air.

Kane gathered up his robe and stood, the heavy fabric whispering against the cold stone floor. He bowed once before the altar before moving down the aisle. He paused in the doorframe of the House of Memories, his eyes drawn to the velvet-black sky. There were no stars; only a sliver of white moon. Kane leant forwards, pulled the wooden door closed, and locked it.

Wordlessly, he walked a loop of the gigantic main room, gently brushing the top of each headstone and memorial as he passed. When he reached the main altar again, he lit a stick of incense in the glow of yamask's otherworldly face mask. Once the sweet smell of herbs swelled in the close air, just barely masking the underlying smog of decay, Kane took his leave. He crossed to the far side of the room and ducked through an archway, bowing his head against the hanging white strips of fabric. Yamask passed through the wall above the doorway, the dim glow disappearing momentarily.

The hallway was long, one wall lined with narrow open windows, hewn into the rock of the building, whilst the other had only four doorways. Kane opened the third and went through.

His bedroom was sparsely furnished. Tucked into the corner was a rough-looking bed, above its foot another open window, through which blew a cold breeze. On the opposite side of the room was a small desk and chair, and on the wall above the table top a faded sepia photograph was carefully pinned.

Although he was exhausted, Kane didn't allow himself to slump on his bed right away. Instead, he sat at the desk, pulling a slender notebook from the small pile before him. Yamask drifted to peer over his shoulder. The light from the moon mingled with the golden glow of his pokémon, giving the room an ethereal, paper-like quality.

Kane opened the notebook and flicked past a few pages, neat rows of his hand writing flashing past. He stopped at a list. Running a finger down the column, he studied each entry carefully, ticking the components off in his head.

He couldn't help but feel anxious. He'd checked and double-checked all that was needed for tomorrow, but the magnitude of his upcoming task lay heavily across his thin shoulders.

Kane raised his eyes to stare at the photograph above him for reassurance.

It was incredibly old, taken when cameras were still used. It showed a beautiful, tremendous tower, the structure seemingly cutting the sky in half. The sun was behind the photographer, so there was no shadow… but just off to the side of the gaping wound of the doorway was a smudged figure. It was hard to make out; it could very well just be a misprint or ink blot. Kane had diligently studied that smudge until his eyes watered. He knew what that smudge meant, even if the few remaining occupants of Lavender Town didn't.

Kane cradled his head in his palm, his eyes moving over the photograph, absorbing each detail as they had a thousand times before.

The Pokémon Tower was long gone now. The beautiful structure, made of curious purple-tinted stone, had been knocked down back in 2010. In its stead a radio tower had been built, but that had fallen prey to the spirits of the town twenty years later, and was now nothing more than a crumbling, tottering pile of stone and metal on the outskirts of town. Some thrill-seeker kids hung out there on the weekends, Kane knew, but that had dropped off significantly after Rina…

Clenching his fists, Kane dropped his gaze, replaced the notebook, and got up. Mechanically, he undressed – folding his robe – and got into bed, pulling the single thin sheet up to his chin. Yamask moved to float in front of the window, blotting out the weak light from the moon.

"Good night," Kane whispered. Yamask bowed its head and extinguished its mask, the room taking on a blurred grey-blue light.

* * *

When Kane woke, it was just before six. He was a little distressed at over-sleeping, yet the sight of yamask, waiting patiently, sleeplessly, for him to awake was a calming one.

"Today is the day," Kane reminded the blank ceiling, pale and clinical with the cool rays of dawn. Washing himself with the cold water in the jug on his desk, Kane then dressed in his soft grey robe, cinching the fabric around his waist with a thin leather belt. Over his left hip, on a notch in his belt, hung a small chip of lavender-tinted stone, whittled into the shape of a long rectangle and tied through the belt with a tiny piece of black silk.

Kane reached below his bed and pulled out a rough-spun brown rucksack. Making sure that it was secure and complete with the few belongings he needed for his journey, at the last moment Kane took the notebook from his desk and tucked it inside.

As he straightened up, his eye caught the photograph of Pokémon Tower. Kane hesitated. He pulled it down and put it between the first few pages of the notebook.

Yamask watched him, unblinking red eyes eerie in the dim morning light.

Kane ventured out into the hallway and made for the main space in the House of Memories. Just before he went into the room – and outwards to his journey - he noticed the last door to his left was open. Kane turned and pushed it open the whole way.

Elder Fuji was kneeling before the altar in the middle of the room. The air was smoky and sharp with the bitter Kanto wind coming through the window, the faint scent of autumn damp, melting wax, and incense.

Kane went and knelt beside his mentor, yamask hovering at his shoulder. Touching his forehead, Kane murmured the rites, relaxing at routine. As he asked the three dogs for strength and the three birds for wisdom, Fuji rose.

Once Kane had finished his prayers, he bowed deeply before standing up. Fuji was staring blindly out of the window, his eyes milky.

"Be brave, Kane," Elder Fuji said suddenly, his voice throaty and quivering with age. "Look to The Six, and you will be safe."

"I will," Kane vowed.

"You know and have studied your route." The ancient man turned his white gaze to Kane. Momentarily, his chin quivered. "I wish the grace of mew upon you, Kane. Your pilgrimage will not be in vain, I promise you that."

Kane bowed his head, although he knew it would go unseen by his mentor. He felt his eyes prickle.

"I will take my leave," Kane murmured, lifting his head. He studied Fuji silently for a few moments. The old man was so frail. Ageless, unmoving, he stood like a shelf of rock, heedless of wind or sea. If Kane didn't know any better, he'd say that the Elder had been created by arceus itself, right at the beginning of time.

Fuji would be fine, here in the House of Memories. He had the other two students to keep him safe. Those boys were younger than Kane, much too young for their own pilgrimage, but they loved Fuji like a father; Kane was confident nothing unwanted would happen. But even so…

Kane ducked his head once more and left the room, a gust of smoke and leaves and wax billowing out into the hallway.

Outside, the air was cold. The sun hadn't yet come up; its rays were only now peeking out over the horizon, hesitant golden light dabbing the fringes of the fading lilac sky. Kane hoisted his rucksack further on his shoulders. He wouldn't eat until he reached Saffron, maybe later. It would serve as a reward for travelling so far on his first day.

As he made his way down the deserted streets, yamask floating beside him, Kane thought about his task at hand.

To understand all gods, not only Kanto deities – that was his goal. He was following in the footsteps of Elder Fuji, the man who had traveled all the way to South America. The man who had stood at the base of Aztec ruins, the streaming sun illuminating ancient etchings, one hand shading his scholarly gaze. The man who had stumbled back as mew appeared before him, vanishing just as quickly, yet leaving behind a tuft of fur caught in the branches of a low-hanging tree. Elder Fuji, who in those days had been known as _Mister, _who was one of the first scientists to use mew's precious DNA, to create mewtwo, to escape the tragic explosion on Cinnabar.

Kane remembered listening to the Elder one spring morning, maybe two years ago. Listening as the old man detailed his trip back to South America after the end of the war, and his desire to see mew one more time in his old, withered age. How – and this was told with trembling breath, his white eyes shining with unshed tears – mew had come to him, had made him young again.

He'd reached the end of Lavender town. Kane stood at the line where muted purple pavement met the stern rural gravel. He hadn't been outside of Lavender town before, not since Rina had disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, maybe hoping to catch a last gasp of incense and candle wax, Kane stepped onto route eight.

"Mew guide my steps, know my path, light my way," Kane murmured as he walked, his sandals sending skittering stones to race before him.

Route eight meandered along the base of the mountains that surrounded Lavender, although it was a good deal grassier than the other surrounding routes. Scrubby mountainous foliage dotted the way for miles, a rough fence-line on his left serving as the only route guide. To Kane's right was a sheer face of dark grey rock. Over the fence was a coarse plain, intercepted occasionally by hunks of fallen rock. Lavender town was essentially unreachable by hover car, hence the absence of any motorway. Kane liked it this way, with the quiet sounds of distant pokémon and the gentle caress of the wind. It made him feel isolated, as if this stretch of road was the only place left on Earth.

It took about two hours to reach Saffron. Kane prayed as he walked, keeping up a running dialogue murmured beneath his breath, occasionally making an aside to yamask, who was silent as the grave. It helped keep his mind off other things, like how dangerous Saffron was, and how easy a target he appeared, in his old-fashioned robe and sandals.

The hulking mass of Saffron appeared on the horizon by about eight, and by eight thirty the gigantic metropolis was casting a looming shadow over the now-diminutive route. The rough outskirts of Saffron consisted mainly of one-story houses with chain-link fences, the gravel-turned-pavement littered with leaves and bits of rubbish. As Kane walked further along the main road, the buildings either side of him mutated, gradually adding a story here, a room there, until soon he was surrounded by squalid apartment blocks and the occasional burnt-out hover car. Thankfully, he saw no one apart from a stray persian in an alley and a koffing hovering over an overflowing skip.

Kane was nearing the city central. The apartment blocks – which had reminded him of some pictures he had seen of communist Europe, back in the Third War – had adopted a glossy look. Now, the streets were somewhat cleaner, the hover cars unmolested. Kane spied a man walking an eevee on the other side of the road.

At last, he reached the end of the main road. Kane glanced back the way he had come, fancying he could see the towering structure of Pokémon Tower in the distance. He crossed the street and found himself in the main square of Saffron, surrounded on all sides by flashing billboards and massive glassy buildings. The traffic had picked up considerably now he'd left the suburbs; people bustled to and fro, clutching coffee cups, their eyes watching their feet as they hurried along. In the background a stream of multi-coloured hover cars flashed past, the air now rising to a crescendo of car horns and traffic light signals and passing conversations.

Yamask now drifted almost directly above his right shoulder – and Kane couldn't blame it. Yamask was a creature of ancient worlds. The quiet solitude of Lavender was nothing compared to Saffron city.

Kane felt his stomach growl. Considering he had made good time, he saw a nearby diner and decided to eat a proper breakfast as a reward. He was planning on making his way to Celadon by lunchtime. Kane figured that travelling through the main section of Saffron and the outlying suburbs would take a couple of hours at least. He was a little nervous about passing by the Underground Path – although when he had voiced these fears to Elder Fuji, the man had told him to harbor no fear.

"_The mew will guide your path, Kane," Fuji said gently, smiling at his charge, "no harm will come to you, I swear it."_

The diner was cramped, a sideways rectangular shape mimicking half the length of the main square. One wall was taken up entirely by the counter, the other lined by booths overlooking the world outside. Kane chose a particularly sticky table in the back. He was hyper-aware of his surroundings, yet willed himself to not be overwhelmed by it all.

_The dogs give me strength, _he thought, looking down at the variety of breakfast sausages available, _the birds give me wisdom._

"Can I help you?"

Kane looked up from the menu at the waitress, who looked sleepy and harassed. The diner was packed with early-morning commuters; she looked run off her feet.

"If I could have a bowl of rice?" Kane asked her politely, handing over the menu. "And a cup of water, please."

"Sure." The waitress took the menu, but before moving away, she gave his robe a thoughtful look and commented: "You in dress-up, or something?"

Kane glanced down at his clothes, although when he raised his eyes she had gone, the end of her skirt flashing around the end of the corner.

He arranged the salt and pepper shakers neatly, brushed the crumbs off the table. Yamask moved to float opposite him.

Kane stared, unseeing, as the inhabitants of Saffron city rushed past the window, his hands folded in his lap, like two animals comforting one another, and prayed.


	4. tricks

**DAKOTA WESTFIELD**

* * *

**A/N **Because of this chapter, the rating's gone up. Apologies for any inconvenience!

* * *

The roar of the crowd was deafening. Overflowing with people – drop-outs, thieves, prostitutes, druggies – the air was thick with cigarette smoke and the stench of old sweat. In the middle of the crowded room a space was cleared, and in the rough circle, two pokémon fought.

Dakota stood at the front of the crowd, her eyes trained to the significantly larger pokémon. Her poocheyena was a veteran at this bloodthirsty sport. Dakota gave the match another two minutes, tops.

Sasha leapt back from a poorly-aimed blow by the nincada. Snarling, frothing madly at the mouth, the poocheyena's hackles rose and she yapped wildly at her cowering opponent.

The crowd jostled and writhed, reminding Dakota of being caught in a vortex or a rushing river, unable to swim against the churning, gnashing current. She exhaled heavily through her nose and focused on Sasha. If she made a mistake and lost her temper, the crowd would turn on her in a heartbeat. Yeah, she was a regular. But that meant shit all when everyone was high on adrenaline and speed. We're all enemies, she thought blithely.

Dakota's poocheyena had had enough. She feinted to one side, and when the nincada's sharp scythe came down and stuck fast in the dirt, Sasha pounced like a spring, sinking her teeth into the hard exoskeleton of the bug type. The nincada let out a terrible screech, and the crowd ducked and some covered their ears, screaming at the pokémon to _shut the fuck up. _Dakota grit her teeth and rode it out, her eyes never leaving the match before her.

Sasha shook her head from side to side, the nincada flailing uselessly underneath her, until she wrenched her jaw free. Green liquid spurted from the wound as Sasha crunched down on the massive leaf of shell she'd managed to tear away. As the nincada shrieked again, Sasha stuck her snout into the gaping hole and tore out a mass of pallid insides.

The crowd shrank back, hands held fast over mouths and noses. Dakota retched despite herself, the disgusting reek of the bug pokémon's dying body cutting through the room.

Sasha made a heaving motion and dropped the intestines back into the wound, her body shuddering. The poocheyena whined piteously, her tongue lolling, one paw batting at her snout desperately.

The owner of the nincada stepped forward and kicked the remains of his pokémon. Disgusted, he caught Dakota's gaze.

Now that the match was over, the crowd erupted, bawling insults and asides. Beside the distant entrance, a fight broke out.

Dakota stepped around the body of the nincada and Sasha's retching form, holding a hand out to the guy. He glared at her forwardness and stuck a thin white hand into his vest, pulled out a wad of notes.

"Buy yourself a girlfriend," the guy sneered, thrusting the cash towards her. "Fuckin' unfair fight, that was."

"Wanna take this outside?" Dakota snapped, moving a fist as if to sock the guy one. Serve him right too, she thought, seething. She hated going all gangster on these pathetic losers, but it was the only way to remind them that she was _anything _but a bottom feeder. No way in hell could they push _her_ around.

"Fuck you!" He spat at her feet and turned, just as Dakota's fist came slamming into the other side of his jaw.

The crowd rallied, surging around the pair like mud, trampling the remains of the nincada into the dirt, already champing at the bit for more bloodshed, more entertainment. Dakota didn't look for Sasha.

She ducked as the guy hurled an arm in an arc above her above. Keeping her right arm close to her chest, she struck his stomach, and when he doubled over, lashed out and caught him in his ear. Yowling, the guy sank to his knees, where Dakota kicked his windpipe as hard as she could.

Dakota knew better than to keep on going – getting someone when they were down was the coward's way out – but she couldn't help herself, blindly kicking his face again and again, until the cap of her boot was wet and dark and the crowd was frenzied, barely giving her space to move, screaming and pushing her shoulders to urge her on.

Breathing heavily, her chest tight with adrenaline and fear, Dakota dragged herself out of it. She stumbled back, one look at the mutilated body on the ground enough to make her dizzy with nausea. Dakota whirled around and fought her way through the crowd, pushing against the current with all her might, until she shoved her way into the empty stairwell. Gasping, slick with sweat, she charged up the stairs, up and up, finally bursting out into the deserted alleyway.

She couldn't stop shaking. Dakota slumped against the rough brick wall, wanting to lie down, maybe even on the ground, anything anything to make this feeling go away. Her face was wet with sweat, but as she scrunched her eyes shut, she realised she was crying. Dakota shuddered violently, bringing her fingers to smear her face, feeling the cold air congeal the sweat and tears like old grease. She felt disgusting. She'd give a limb to be somewhere warm and safe, where there was a hot bath and a soft bed.

"Get it together, get it together," she chanted under her breath. God, why couldn't she stop shaking?

It could have been hours or minutes, but soon Dakota was aware of a warm body beside hers. She looked down through her fingers, the wet nose of Sasha catching the stuttering bare light bulb above the doorway to the underground club. The poocheyena huffed at her shins through her threadbare jeans.

Dakota gave a mighty sniff and rubbed her face hard with the cuff of her jacket. Tilting her head back to stare at the sliver of sky between the buildings, Dakota let her mind blank.

"Okay."

She rubbed her face one more time, then bent down and scratched Sasha roughly behind the ears. "You did good," she told her pokémon, the poocheyena's tail wagging lethargically at the attention, her muzzle still damp with the nincada's insides. "Let's go."

Together, trainer and pokémon made their way to the mouth of the alley. They paused, teetering on the edge between shadow and orange streetlight. The main road was relatively deserted. A nightclub on the other side of the street was churning out some drunks, the girls laughing hysterically, breasts flopping and dresses hiking up thighs. Dakota averted her gaze, though in the next instant, stopped dead.

A young man stepped out of the club, the blue neon light casting eerie shadows to play across his features. He was slender like a reed, a pair of red jeans clinging lewdly to his legs. He looked up and down the street, his eyes skittering over the retreating girls. When he glanced across the road and started over it, jogging a little as a hover car came tearing past, Dakota felt her heart jump.

It was always like this before she picked up. She'd label it the thrill of the chase, maybe, or the prospect of getting some extra cash – but she knew it was for one reason only. Or rather, one person.

Ignoring the way her stomach wrenched at the thought of _him, _Dakota quickly brushed a palm over her buzzcut. She glanced down at Sasha.

"Don't scare him off."

The poocheyena growled.

Checking to make sure the guy wasn't too close – he wasn't; he'd paused in the middle of the road, waiting for some hover cars to pass – Dakota fumbled for a pokéball and returned Sasha in a swarm of red light. The poocheyena was helpful when it came to fighting, but when she was trying to hook a client?

The guy started across the road, heading straight for Dakota's alley. She immediately leant back against the corner wall, letting her eyes fall to half-mast.

As he reached the pavement, he raised his gaze. When he noticed Dakota, he slowed noticeably and stopped, staring at her, his lips hitched in a slight smirk.

"Hey." Dakota peeled away from the alley wall, keeping her eyes hooded and low. She raised her head and let her chin fall upwards, exposing the long white column of her throat. She felt the man's eyes drag along her skin, drinking in her willowy body; her boy's body.

"How much?" he asked, not bothering to sugar coat his request. Good, Dakota thought savagely. Mama's boys were a waste of time. She hated having to tiptoe around kids like that; hold their hands as they fucked her.

Dakota lowered her head. No need to play coy, now. He was hooked.

She shrugged. The guy's eyes were fixed on her mouth. "Twenty if you blow me," he demanded.

Dakota didn't bother converting the amount. Japan had phased out yen eight years ago in an effort to appease the States of Unova. The currency was in dollars now, although there were still some idiots who tried to use yen.

Instead of answering, she glanced back down the alleyway. No one had emerged from the underground club – no doubt some massive fight had broken out – so she looked back and beckoned for her john to follow her. As she started down the alley, she was aware of how close the man was walking to her.

"You're a little slut, aren't you?"

Dakota resisted rolling her eyes. Great, he was a talker.

"Yeah, a little teen slut all ready for my -"

"Let's get this done," Dakota snapped, harsher than she intended. They were a little ways down the alley; the distant light bulb above the club entrance was nothing more than a blurred dim blob, the surrounding darkness swallowing up the orange street lights from the main road. Instead of looking affronted at her snippy tone, the guy just looked even more turned on.

Dakota pinned the man to the harsh brick wall, clapping a hand over his mouth when he went to kiss her.

"Got a boyfriend, have you?" he smirked.

To stop him talking, she shoved down his zipper and fell to her knees.

* * *

Dakota sat in one of the booths of the familiar diner, an abandoned plate in front of her with the remnants of a hurried breakfast. Outside, the world was dark, though occasional pedestrians hurried past, wanting to get home before they got mugged or raped or kidnapped.

She picked up her cup of cold coffee, took a hesitant sip. At the counter, a young waitress refilled the salt shakers, mouthing along to the stuttering radio in the back. There was someone else at a table near the door, but they hadn't moved the entire time she'd been there. They were probably asleep.

Dakota yawned, thinking she'd very much like to be in bed herself. After she'd finished off the john and got her cash, she'd cruised for an hour or so more, picking up ninety dollars in total, not counting the amount she made in the club. It wasn't bad for a night's work. Her pickups hadn't even been total weirdos: one guy had wanted sex, but the other two were cool with just a blow job. Dakota winced at the memory and sipped her coffee again. She could still taste them, and her arse stung.

She stared out the window for a little while longer, delaying the moment when she'd have to go back out into the autumn night air. The diner was warm and no one was talking to her. As far as Dakota was concerned, that was a win.

Running a hand over her short hair, Dakota swirled the dredges of coffee around in the cup and downed it. Rummaging in her inner pockets, she brought out her earnings, counting the notes surreptitiously under the table. One hundred and thirty five dollars. She couldn't help a small smile before tucking it all away.

Coughing – that was what you got from sleeping on the streets, she thought grumpily – Dakota left some cash on the table and left the diner, giving the waitress a flirtatious look as she passed.

Outside, the wind was icy and tore her in two as if she were paper. She swore and crossed her arms about her middle. Glancing around the main square of Saffron, she weighed her options. She could work for a few hours more – it was only two o'clock; as far as she was concerned, the night was still young – or she could splurge and get a cheap motel room.

Dakota sniffed, thinking. Across the square, a gaggle of young partygoers staggered along, ducking down a side street, their laughter and loud conversation echoing off the tall, rundown buildings. That decided it.

The streets of Saffron were wide, uniform affairs that criss-crossed the city like blood vessels. Alleyways and side streets sprouted off at regular intervals. It made Saffron seem like a duplicate city, each road mimicked by one in shadow. Dakota smirked. _What an apt analogy._

She followed the huge group of drunks for a while, keeping at least a block away from them, doggedly tracing their path. There were too many for her to take by herself – she only had Sasha and her growlithe, Nix – but no doubt one of them would go off by themselves eventually; try and make their own treacherous way home… And when that happened, she'd pounce.

Dakota didn't like mugging at the best of times. It was easier to sell herself, or win a couple of fights with either her pokémon or her fists, but she'd changed her mind since following this group. They were all so drunk… it would be a crime if she _didn't _steal from them, really. They'd just drink their money away. Dakota needed it far more than these kids.

After a few more blocks, Dakota realised she'd gained on the staggering group. She'd also realised that she'd struck lucky: these kids were _rich. _

Saffron didn't have many of the upper-crust society left, anymore. A lot of them had moved away to Celadon, or even Vermillion: anywhere was better than the crime-riddled Saffron city and its spooky neighbour, Lavender. Dakota remembered reading an article about the Lavender Incident. She didn't really get why it had been such a big deal. Kids went missing all the time.

Dakota let herself relaxed, lost in the easy game of meowth and rattata. She was close enough now to see earrings that caught the streetlight, artfully ripped designer t-shirts, authentic leather boots. There were about six kids left, and they were slowing down.

Suddenly, they all swayed to a halt.

Dakota ducked into a crevice between two apartment blocks, the horrendous structures stretching upwards and dissolving into the night sky. A couple members of the group clung to a streetlight as one girl heaved the contents of her stomach into the gutter. Dakota relaxed. Maybe after this brief interlude the group would let down their guard even more – maybe even split off into pairs. She felt a brief thrill at the thought. _Ripe pickings._

Some members of the group who weren't violently vomiting now lolled against the façade of an apartment block, scattered across the short front flight of concrete stairs like boneless fish, laughing with hee-hawing abundance. Dakota thought it lucky none of them seemed to have any pokémon on them. Drunken youths and disgruntled pokémon didn't mix.

Just as she started to get a bit anxious – one of the vomiting girls had fallen down, much to the amusement of her faithful peers (but what if they panicked and called the cops?) – Dakota heard something down the street.

Resisting the urge to whip around and toss out a pokéball, instead she stayed still and silent. She turned her heard slowly to the side, keeping her left eye on the group, and with her peripheral vision, she scanned the vacant street behind. Her heart rate picked up a little.

The street was swathed in shadow beyond the occasional small pools of orange light. The darkness was like stagnant water, lapping at the edge of her vision and the pinpricks of soft light from upper-story dwellings. The street stirred gently, and her eyes blurred and stung. Dakota rubbed them roughly; when she opened them again, a figure slipped under a dim streetlamp.

She was immediately on her guard. It was an unwritten rule amongst street-rats like herself – one predator to a group, end of story. If you intruded on someone else's game, you were now part of the equation. Mercy didn't exist in Saffron anymore.

Dakota inched one hand to rest around the pokéball in her right jacket pocket. In the flare of fright she'd felt, she'd turned her whole head to stare down the street. She chanced a glance back towards her group of drunks, only to see them now staggering off, shadow and light sliding over the figures like water.

The girl who'd collapsed in the gutter was still there. Dakota glanced back down the street and then stepped out of the slender alley she'd been stationed in, walking quickly to the girl's slumped form.

Vomit crusted around the girl's mouth, the front of her satin dress wet. The girl's eyes fluttered weakly and she moaned as Dakota's hands flashed in and out of the girl's bag, deftly searching her body for the typical phone-in-bra or money-in-underwear hiding spots. Dakota emerged with ten dollars and a tube of lip-gloss. _So much for aristocratic teenage dirtbags. _She left the latter in the girl's left bra cup and stepped away, melting into the shadows and starting after her group.

Dakota didn't bother checking behind her again; whoever had been stalking this group now knew it was taken. If they persisted in following her, well, Dakota knew how to play rough.

Regardless, she drew out Nix's pokéball and released the growlithe quietly beside a roughed-up hover car. _All bases covered._

Dakota followed the drunken group for a few more blocks. Once a guy left his friends and stumbled away into an apartment block. She didn't bother to try and jump him; it was too risky.

This was proving to be not as lucrative as she'd hoped. For one, the group was moving at a decent pace – all thoughts she'd had of cornering them in some dark alley were completely out the window. Two, this was taking far too long. Dakota didn't care how long she was out of a night, but only if she was actually getting something out of it.

Dakota slowed down, allowing an extra block to grow between her and the group. Nix padded by her side like an apparition, his dusty orange fur muted against the grey pavement and dim streetlight.

Little by little the group grew smaller, most of them disappearing into apartment buildings with a lot of fanfare, the remaining friends calling out long-winded goodbyes and laughing uproariously, and more and more Dakota's patience thinned. Why had she decided to follow them again? Right, for cash. Dakota thought of the snug wad of money tucked into her pocket and thought it best to call it a night. She was irritated that she'd wasted so much time – in the hour or so she'd spent tracing this group, she could have picked up six, seven, eight johns and earned another hundred.

"Goddammit," she breathed. The group had come to an intersection and were splitting up. Only four remained, and as two went one way and two went the other, Dakota slumped against the side of a building and stared out at the now-empty intersection. The few traffic lights that weren't broken flicked diligently red-yellow-green. The sky above was lightening, dabbed with the fading orange glow of nightlife and the oncoming sunrise.

Dakota yawned. At her side, Nix whined once gently, then sat down. _I could have followed one of the pairs, _she thought lazily, watching a couple of skinny persian slink across the intersection. The big cats paused and eyed her, though Nix hurried them along with a warning bark. Dakota ran her hands over her stubbly hair.

"Time to get lost, I think," she told Nix. The growlithe woofed in agreement.

She didn't move. Dakota liked this time of night-morning. It was like she was all alone in the world. As if they'd been an Armageddon, and she was the only survivor in this ghost town.

Saffron was the most dangerous city in Kanto, but Dakota couldn't imagine living anywhere else. She knew each street, each alleyway. She knew which clubs could get you big winnings; which clubs the dwindling police force patrolled. Saffron was Dakota's town, that was for sure.

Dakota yawned again and turned back the way she'd come. She didn't know where she was going to sleep; maybe she'd rent out a motel room after all, as a reward for being a _total fucking idiot _and following a bunch of drunks halfway across Saffron.

She took a moment to gather her bearings, then set off. The mechanical act of putting one foot in front of the other coaxed her into a daze. Dakota wondered about the few friends she'd had in Saffron; wondered if they'd ever made it out of this hellhole and onto the rest of the League-approved cities. Had they earned any more badges? How were their starters? Had they evolved yet? Dakota refused to acknowledge the swell of guilt that rose within her. _Think about something else. Think about what you're going to do with all that cash you made tonight._

Dakota had forgotten the anonymous person who'd started stalking her group earlier. It was only when someone stepped out onto the pavement in front of her that she remembered.

Nix leapt before her, hackles raised and lips pulled back to expose sharp teeth, brown with rot. Dakota was jerked out of her thoughts, as if she'd awoken from a dream, one of those nights when she floated through her dream palace and fell off the edge, tumbling, hurtling, through the sky to slam into the ground and jolt upright in her bed/street/pile of rubbish. Quick as a flash, she was on her guard.

"Fuck off." The warning words spilled out of her mouth without a thought. Nix snarled his approval and took a menacing step forward.

Normally, Dakota might've scared the stranger off a little, maybe staked out whether or not they were a cop (unlikely) or a potential victim (likely). And normally, Nix wouldn't have jumped so quickly to her defence… But as Dakota glared at the shadowy figure a few metres away from her, she realised that Nix had been as startled as she had. It had been a long time since either of them had been able to let down their guard.

The figure remained silent.

"_Fuck_ off," she repeated, louder this time. She drew herself up. Nix knew better than to start barking nonstop – who knew where a police patrol was, or worse, a roaming gang – but instead snarled like a stuck arbok. A flume of flame spurted forth into the pool of streetlight that separated them from the stranger.

Then, the figure stepped forward.

Dakota didn't recognize the guy. He was tall, thin, like all Saffron street-rats were – but Dakota couldn't help but note the carefully (expensively) sculpted physique - with a massive dirty blonde mohawk. Some strands of hair straggled down in front of his squarish face in dreadlocks. He was attractive, Dakota supposed, and despite herself, she felt a flicker of arousal. If he wanted something… why not make it her?

She let a few minutes go by, before signalling to Nix, who stopped snarling quite so much and retreated to her side, bristling with pent-up adrenaline. Dakota's gaze lowered submissively; she put one hand in her back pocket, pushing apart her jacket and showing off her slender t-shirt clad frame. Still, she watched the stranger through her eyelashes with sharp eyes.

"Hey, I'm sorry for that." Dakota shrugged; _no big deal. _"You gotta be careful, know what I'm saying?" She brushed her other hand over her hair and hooked it around the back of her neck, letting her head fall back a little.

"What's your name?" The stranger's voice was startlingly gentle. He reminded Dakota of those rich kids who slummed it for a bit before going back to mummy and daddy_. _Like that movie she saw once – what was its name? _My Private _something.

"Dakota," she replied, as always thankful for her unisex name. By the look of this guy – tight jeans, black Docs, red flannel shirt, denim jacket, carvanha tooth earring in his left ear – he was either channelling some 90's punk revival or was in the closet. That was fine by her: she was a _teen slut_ after all.

_A _boy _teen slut, _she reminded herself.

"Dakota." He rolled the word around in his mouth slowly, like he was savouring a sweet. The guy looked her in the eye a little boldly, a little shyly, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do. "I'm Frank."

As she smiled, aware that this action stretched her red lips and brought to mind other certain images, underneath Dakota was simmering. She was tired and irritable. If she ended up fucking this guy, she'd charge him twice as much. _It's the least I deserve…_

The atmosphere between them was far more relaxed now. Dakota moved closer to the guy, her stance naturally masculine, with her narrow hips jutting forward and her back curved with bad posture. Over time she'd learnt that most men she picked up liked that twink look about her. Dakota didn't touch him, but instead stood provocatively close. The guy shivered.

"What do you like to do?" Dakota asked softly.

His reaction was the last thing she expected. The guy blinked wildly at her, eyes wide, and took a step backwards. Nix growled.

"I'm sorry?" he spluttered eventually, looking very much out of his depth.

Dakota wasn't religious, but she'd have prayed to anything to get some answers on this guy. She fought to keep herself in check. _Remember, you're a slut, slut, slut. _"Where d'you wanna go?" she clarified, stepping back into the guy's personal space. "What d'you want me to do?"

Before she knew it, there was a flash of light, and then stout green pokémon knocked her backwards. Dakota fell heavily onto the road, grazing both elbows when she caught herself. She swore violently, jumping to her feet. Somehow, Sasha's pokéball was in her hand, and somehow, the poocheyena was in front of her, and somehow, Sasha had flown at the axew and buried her maw into the dragon pokémon's soft neck.

The guy howled and fumbled for his pokéball. Dakota was _so _through playing. If this was some weird kinky shit, she was out. Fucking and blowjobs. That was the end of her repertoire.

Shaking its heavy head, the axew yowled bitterly. Sasha's teeth weren't enough to break through the thick, reptilian skin, but that wasn't stopping the poocheyena, who clawed at the axew's side and managed to get on top of the dragon pokémon. Nix dashed behind the guy and snapped at his ankle; he yelped and stumbled forward, only to swerve backwards as his axew fought wildly at the foreign mass on its back, Sasha ruthlessly biting again and again at the axew's neck.

"No, no, no, _no_!" The guy finally managed to grab a pokéball and his axew dissolved within it, leaving Sasha to land nimbly on the pavement.

The growlithe and poocheyena advanced on the guy, Nix snapping at his heels every time he moved backwards. They cornered him against the side of a building, the streetlight above them spluttering.

Dakota's heart was racing and adrenaline flooded her system. She stalked forward and pinned him to the rough brick wall by his neck.

She wasn't one for catchy one-liners, so just as she was about to punch his face in without any further ado, the guy held up his hands and started to babble nonsense.

"Wait, wait, wait!" he floundered in her grasp, twisting like an ekans. Dakota only tightened her grip, Nix and Sasha on either side of her.

"No, please, wait, please _wait_! I panicked, I'm sorry, I panicked! You can have my pokémon – you can have anything – just _please, _no, no, no!"

"I'm going to have your fucking pokémon _anyway,_" Dakota bit out, the words choked with anger. "And your cash, and the clothes on your back, and then _I'm going to kill you _and leave you naked in the fucking street, you hear me?"

"Wait, _wait_!" Dakota noticed the front of his jeans was wet. "You know me! You _know me, I swear_!"

"Shut up!" she snapped desperately, losing her patience. Dakota drew his head away from the wall by her grip on his neck, then smashed his skull against the brick wall with a sick _smack. _Dimly, she was aware that Sasha and Nix had taken a hold of each his legs, their teeth sinking heavily into the meat, starting to chew their way through skin to bone. All the while the guy howled at her to _wait please wait _as Dakota slammed his head back again and again.

When blood bubbled from his nose, the wall behind him damp and sticky, and Dakota had drawn back her fist to shove it into an eye socket, dragging the life from him satisfyingly slowly, he gave one last feverish movement to get away.

"_You know me_!" he bawled, sobbing and bloodied, the dying streetlight now bathing his face in a sickly grey-yellow glow. "I'm Frank, I'm Francis – Francis _Rolfe, _I swear it! _Rolfe_!"

The name shot through Dakota like lightning. Her fist hovered from his face, quivering with exertion and adrenaline.

Frank began to blubber uncontrollably. "_I'm Francis Rolfe, mew have mercy, I'm Francis Rolfe_!"

He opened his eyes, lashes fluttering wetly with blood and sweet and tears, his gaze dark with fear. "My brother, you knew my brother. I'm… I'm Francis _Rolfe_."

Dakota was instantly drained.

"My brother… my brother's Johnny Rolfe. You knew him. You knew him once."

"Yeah," Dakota whispered after a while, watching Frank's eyes dim with exhaustion, his body going slack as he fainted and crumpled to the pavement. She was shuddering as if covered in ice or the sweet flare of flame, like a martyr of old on a funeral pyre. As the early rays of sunlight flickered hopefully over the top of Saffron, Dakota dropped to her knees beside Frank. She started unseeingly at his now-familiar face. "Yeah, I knew him."


	5. alliance

**DAKOTA WESTFIELD & FRANCIS ROLFE**

* * *

Dakota had chanced it and took Frank to a hospital. Once upon a time, it mightn't have been the cleverest move for a person like her to take – but the fear of nurses discovering track marks or random police searches were a thing of the past, and now Saffron was used to youths coming in at all hours of the night. Rape victims, drug overdoses, stab wounds, pokémon attacks. _Normality is restored, _Dakota thought as she flicked through a magazine in the overflowing waiting room.

Now, they were holed up in some crummy motel. She fobbed the doctor off with some tale as to why Frank couldn't stay in for observation, she couldn't remember what exactly. Thankfully, his wounds hadn't been life-threatening. He'd cracked his skull, bled a lot. Dakota was glad she hadn't stuffed a finger or two into his eye socket; _then _she'd be in trouble.

Frank was fast asleep on the double bed. Dakota hadn't been able to sleep. For one, she wasn't about to cosy up to Francis Rolfe, and two, someone had to watch the door. There was a latch and key, but Dakota doubted their security.

She sat beside the half-shuttered window, kicking her feet against the side of the bed and watching the pedestrians on the street below. Some had pokémon by their sides; the rest simply hurried along, heads down, eyes averted. The morning sunlight was a watery affair, rays sliding despondently down buildings to cast weak slants of light across busy roads. The cacophony of the street rose up to meet her, sounds of hover car horns and people yelling and pokémon chattering and footsteps slapping. Dakota pulled the thin blanket around her shoulders and settled further into the back of the threadbare armchair.

She'd stayed in this motel a few times before. Its regular clientele – prostitutes, shady 'businessmen' – didn't bother her, and she didn't bother them. After she'd managed to haul Frank here after the hospital, a few extra bucks had gotten them a room on the top floor, complete with leaky roof and no neighbours save for a noisy couple across the hall.

Dakota closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the darkness, before she opened them again. She was desperately tired. Dakota had run to the bathroom down the hall earlier, leaving both Sasha and Nix on guard in their room. A quick shower had worked its magic; she felt clean and brand new… and very sleepy. What she would give…

Sasha snuffled. Dakota opened her eyes again, drawn to the poocheyena lying by the door. Nix was curled on top of the bed, at the foot of the mass of blankets covering Frank.

Dakota knew she needed a plan. They couldn't stay holed up here forever, as much as she'd like to. Her money was going to run out sooner or later. As soon as Frank awoke, she'd weasel the story out of him. How had he managed to find her, after all this time? And why mention Johnny?

Even the mention of his name caused her heart to clench painfully. Dakota gritted her teeth and stared at the stain ceiling.

What did Frank want with her, anyway? Surely he knew what had happened to his brother. Surely he knew what had happened to her. Surely he knew that there was no chance they could team up, _safety in numbers _style… Though his axew would prove a good companion.

Dakota stared at the lump on the bed. A tuft of blonde dreadlock was just visible. The fact that Frank had an axew didn't surprise her in the slightest. After all, the Rolfe family weren't exactly scratching around when it came to paying the bills. But still, Frank wasn't a stupid guy. Why had he brought axew with him to Saffron? Pokémon like that – _especially _Unovian pokémon – fetched quite a pretty penny, if you knew where to look. And Dakota knew where to look.

Biting her lip, she let her gaze drag along Frank's body, hidden under the covers. She could always take everything he had and make a run for it. She had no need for an axew, or any other rare pokémon he had. And a find like that would keep her comfortable for quite a long time.

_Fine. _If Frank double-crossed her in any way, she'd kill him. Dakota had no issues with doing something like that – even to someone who was related to… Even so. If Frank did _anything, _she let Sasha rip out his throat before she dumped his body in an alleyway somewhere, skipping off with all he had on his person. Maybe she'd leave his body somewhere public, just to get some attention. Maybe she'd pry out his eyes. The Saffron underworld knew Dakota's style. It'd buy her some safety, no doubt about that.

As Dakota slipped into a daydream about pummelling Frank to a bloody mess, said boy stirred. He shifted a few times before sitting upright with a dreadful moan, eyes squeezed shut. He collapsed against the wooden headboard, the impact unfortunately padded by some musty cushions. The bandage around his head was thickly wrapped and clean. A necklace of purple fingerprints decorated his lovely neck.

Dakota didn't… _like _people, as such. But seeing a vulnerable young man in a soft white bed, with the covers pooling in his lap, revealing a hairless tanned chest… Even a boy like her had needs.

Frank lay completely still for a few minutes. He opened his eyes, peering weakly against the gentle sunlight coming in through the half-shuttered window.

"You're a bastard." His voice was rasping like old autumn leaves. As he spoke, he touched his throat self-consciously, tracing the pattern almost in reverence.

Dakota didn't say anything. Frank sat up straighter, drawing his knees to his chest. It was then that he noticed his shirt was missing. Catching Dakota's gaze, she motioned towards the other armchair, where his denim jacket and flannel shirt lay in a tangled heap. She'd been kind enough to leave his jeans on.

Frank gingerly felt the bandage, his fingers tiptoeing around the back to ghost over his tender skull. When he hissed in pain, Dakota stood up, taking the blanket with her. Frank stiffened immediately. When she sat beside him on the bed, the mattress dipping slightly, he narrowed his eyes and made to grab his pokéball.

"You're not that stupid, are you?" Dakota asked scathingly. Frank scowled, dropping his hand in his lap, though still on guard. "Tell me why you were following me," she demanded, "and tell me what you want."

He licked his lips. And suddenly, so quickly she almost missed it, Frank's gaze dipped to her mouth.

Dakota drew back. He couldn't have been following her just for _that. _She gave her favours on nearly every street corner. There hadn't been any need to skulk after her just for a quick fuck.

Still, he was hot. She was still riding high on the last vestiges of adrenaline. He was practically naked.

Dakota paused. It was like last night, when she'd come out of the diner. _Motel or mugging? Motel, or mugging? _Decisions, decisions.

Internally, she sighed - but filed away his subconscious behaviour for future reference.

"Tell me. Or I promise, you'll go right back to the hospital, except you might be wheeled into the morgue this time." Dakota couldn't help herself, darting out to twist his bare left nipple to punctuate her words. Frank drew in a sharp breath. His other nipple stiffened.

_You've got to be kidding me. _Just when she'd decided to be honourable, for once in her life, he was making everything veer off course.

"Listen to me." She leaned forward, twisting his nipple until his expression spiked from pleasure to pain. "You tell me _right now _what you were doing last night." As if scripted, Nix and Sasha was suddenly on the bed beside her, eyes flashing and soft growls rumbling.

Frank's eyes skipped between her pokémon and back to her, any arousing thoughts vanishing. He dropped his gaze shyly, and Dakota was reminded of a very young boy. He touched the bandage on his head, as if for reassurance.

"I… You knew Johnny."

When Frank made to meet her gaze, Dakota forced herself to remain impassive. She twitched his nipple.

His breath hitching in pain, Frank continued: "I know you and he… I know you were best friends. Even though you don't know me, I know you." His words were earnest. "You're Dakota Westfield. You started your pokémon journey with Johnny. You're just like me."

"_Just like you_? How _the fuck _am I just like you?"

"You're a runaway. A deserter. That's what people call ex-pokémon trainers, 'deserters'. I'm a deserter, too. I was at that club last night, I saw you fight, and I recognized you, I recognized you from Slateport -"

Dakota shoved him away, hard, and his head collided with the headboard, but this time the impact wasn't cushioned. Tears sprang into his eyes and he cried out, both hands coming up to cradle the back of his skull.

"Say one more word, I dare you," Dakota breathed, hands shaking. "Just say _one more word_."

"The Slateport Massacre!" Frank blurted desperately. "I saw you there, with Johnny! I'd gone up to see him, he was so excited about his gym badge, I thought I'd surprise him – I was too late - but I _saw _you, Dakota!"

She pushed herself up and away from the bed, back to the window. She gripped the window sill tightly with two white-knuckled hands.

"Please, Dakota, you have to help me," Frank said at last, the plea quiet and hesitant, coming to hover between them, a dove with an olive branch. "The guy… You know, the guy who did it… He's here, in Saffron."

Frank met her frightened gaze. "I'm going to kill him. I need you to help me."

The room was silent.

"You're the only guy I know who'd help me." Frank was crying now, just like he had when Dakota had held him pinned to the brick wall, with blood dribbling from his nose and skull. "You need this as much as I do. He needs to die, for what he did.

"The police never caught him. But you'd know that… He came here three days ago. I've been following him, and then I saw you in the club, and I had to follow you and get you to help. You killed that guy in the club, you know that? You almost killed me. You can… m-murder Johnny's killer too, I know it.

"I'll help you. I'll do whatever you want." Frank's eyes shone with tears and something like devotion or mindless, cold-blooded rage.

Dakota stared at him. Her hands had cramped around the window sill so tightly they hurt to unfurl. She hugged herself, pain shooting up her fingers. Nix came over to her and whined.

"Okay." That one word made Frank to slump against the sheets; Dakota's heart to start beating madly; her back stiffening with fear and cold.

The thought of killing Johnny's murderer… Of having that power in her hands, the power to vanquish the light from his eyes, those eyes that had watched thirty-five people die…

_Normality is restored._

* * *

**A/N **Filler is filler. The 'Slateport' massacre is reference to a real-life tragedy, by the way. These references are intentional, as I kind of wanted this cross-referencing, if you like, to be present in this fic. I mean absolutely no offence by referencing these tragedies and global events.


	6. fidelity

**KANE OSAKA**

* * *

**A/N **Making up a religion is insanely difficult.

* * *

"Mew guide my steps, know my path, light my way." The words came unbidden to his lips, the familiar prayer soothing in the dim light of his motel room.

If he hadn't gotten lost, Kane might have stayed at the place of worship here in Saffron. That had been his original plan. It was a narrow, but long, building in the centre of the city, where people could pray in safety and those dedicated to their faith could stay for a few nights. It housed rooms of worship for all deities – except the new Unovian religion. Kane had asked Elder Fuji about it a few weeks before he'd left on his journey. It was a religion that stemmed back centuries, to the Mayan and Aztec times. It was the worship of the three Unovian weather gods: thundurus, tornadus, and landurus. Together, much like the holy bird pokémon, the kami trio symbolised the different domains of the world: landurus of the land, tornadus the heavens, and thundurus the in-between.

Kane felt uneasy when he thought of the kami religion. He held no prejudice against the Unovian ways of practices: that was not the way he had been taught. Privately, he believed in the birds and the dogs, with mew as the ultimate guardian of all.

Shaking his head at his thoughts – _your goal is to understand _all_ deities, Osaka -_ Kane closed his eyes even tighter and bowed, his forehead touching his crossed knees. The candle before him flickered gently, casting up strange, slender shadows on the stained wallpaper of his room.

Eventually, he rose. Turning on the stuttering lamp on the bedside table, he then extinguished the candle. He'd brought twelve candles with him on his journey, one for each month he'd spend abroad. After a year, Kane planned to return to Lavender for a brief respite before travelling east to Johto.

Kane packed away his prayer items and sat on the bed. Outside, the sky was black, punctured by small white stars that managed to decorate the otherwise smoggy night sky. The glow of occasional traffic and streetlights coloured the building opposite the motel in an eerie ghostly light. He felt totally alone in the world.

He twisted around to look at yamask. The ghost pokémon was floating serenely in front of the door, eyes unblinking. Kane was glad for its company. He'd only owned yamask for half a year, its absence so perfectly aligned with Rina's disappearance. Ducking his head, Kane stared blankly at the bedspread. Thinking about Rina made him feel… unholy. It made him lose sight of his goal. It made him want to seek vengeance, though on what or whom, he could not say.

Kane raised his head to meet yamask's gaze, the pokémon now drifting in front of him.

"Thank you for being with me, yamask," he murmured, allowing himself this one moment of weakness.

The ghost pokémon nodded, then one translucent hand reached up to cup his cheek gently.

Kane stared at yamask in astonishment. His pokémon had never before done anything other than stare and float about and occasionally nod. It was the ultimate example of piety and control, one that Kane hoped to emulate.

But as Kane gazed at yamask in this moment, he felt… whole.

It was an odd sensation. The ghost pokémon did not quite touch him, but its hand hovered above his skin, at once both freezing cold and hot. Kane felt himself start to sweat, as if he had broken out in fever.

For minute or so more, they simply stared at each other, then yamask drew its hand away and floated backwards.

"I… thank you," he managed breathlessly. He felt light as air, as if he too could rise up, passing through the roof of the motel and upwards into the heavens, taking Rina's cold hand in his own and staying with her for eternity in mew's grace…

Kane breathed deeply, suddenly overwhelmed. His eyes prickled with unshed tears; his throat constricted. Kane fell back onto the bed and curled up in the foetal position, covering his face with his hands.

_How can I complete my journey? _he thought wretchedly. _I can hardly manage myself._

Although he could not see, cocooned as he was in his world of darkness, his hands shielding his eyes, yamask's hand hovered over his left cheek once more. Kane shuddered violently, this time the sensation ten times more powerful. Waves of ice and flame, like great shelves of snow or volcano ash in a storm, rushed over him - draining him - until Kane managed to heave himself up with a great expense of his remaining strength to stagger into the dingy adjoining bathroom. He clutched the sides of the grimy toilet and retched and heaved until nothing but sickening dribble slid down his chin.

Gasping for air, Kane started to cry in earnest, huddled over the stinking toilet.

_The Six give me strength. Mew guide my way. Mew guide my way. Mew…_

His head spinning, Kane's vision blacked out once, twice, until he toppled sideways, hitting his head on an exposed pipe and didn't move for a long time.

* * *

Yamask gazed down at his master lying crumpled on the grey floor of the motel bathroom. The contents of the toilet rose in putrid fumes, although yamask could not smell it.

The ghost pokémon moved to hover over Kane Osaka. After a moment, its eyes started to glow.

At once, the light in the motel room trembled, then cut completely. Cries of confusion echoed into the room from the other clientele of the motel, though yamask paid this no mind. In the darkness of the dingy bathroom, the colour of its red eyes grew in saturation, like a beacon in the night or an exploding star.

The temperature in the bathroom dropped. The form of Kane Osaka started to shiver, his body coping with the change of its surroundings automatically, his brain functioning only on autopilot. Ice formed on the cracked mirror and the grimy porcelain surfaces. The fluorescent tube on the wall burst.

In the stillness of room 29, the ghost pokémon started to chant. The song was a song of old, when Black Europe was verdant and populated, and great human-built structures straddled the Earth. Yamask sang not from experience, but from memory, drawing on the powers of the in-between.

Slowly, shadows started to play upon the walls. Yamask had noted its kin from before, when Kane Osaka had trembled and knelt before his stuttering candle, praying quietly, unknowingly drawing spirits to this opening between worlds; the rift that formed as Kane Osaka prayed to The Six and to mew, the shields around his world fading away like melting ice.

The shadows mutated, their beings so black and void less that when yamask glanced at them, he could glimpse the parallel beyond. In the darkness, faces flashed in and out of sight, the ghost pokémon's human masks the only acceptable form they could take.

As the chanting swelled, the shadows started to move in a vortex about the room. Their forms slipped over the walls and floor and ceiling, _racing racing racing_ like a whirlpool or a thunderstorm, building to a great cacophonous climax, the high chords of the song reaching impossible levels – the mirror split down the middle, the knobs on the taps burst off and water gushed forth – and yamask hovered above Kane Osaka, singing wonderfully, horribly, until…

* * *

Kane's eyes drifted open, slow as molasses. The first thing he was aware of was how _wet _he was. He shifted his head, feeling the water beneath his body stir gently with the movement. When he attempted to hoist an arm beneath him, his clothes dragged with the added weight.

Gradually, he became aware of other things. Like the sounds coming from the street – hover car horns and people talking. There was banging coming from the room next to his, someone yelling down in the foyer, a murmured conversation buzzing past in the hallway.

He was cold, though the water he lay in had been warmed by his body. Surprisingly, Kane felt no different than if he had awoken from an extremely deep sleep; the sort of slumber in which one does not move or dream.

Kane lay curled on the floor for a few more moments, before pushing himself up. The whole right side of his body ached with lying on the tiled floor. His breath hitched as he clambered to his feet, though he nearly fell with the effort. Clinging to the rim of the sink, Kane took in his surroundings.

The entire floor of the bathroom was covered in a thin layer of water. The knobs off the taps had come off, lying partly submerged on the floor. The shower curtain had been ripped down and was draped over the side of the bath. Kane turned around, catching a sudden whiff of the mess in the toilet, to see the mirror above the sink was patterned with cracks, like a kaleidoscope.

Resisting the urge to vomit again, Kane clutched his way blindly over to the toilet and flushed it. He held his head in one hand, feeling the thudding pulse of blood beneath his fingers.

"Yamask," he called eventually, his voice quiet and hoarse with disuse. He cleared his throat. "Yamask?"

The ghost pokémon floated around the doorway into the bathroom. Kane nearly fainted with shock.

Yamask was no longer yamask. Its body had elongated into a rough rectangular shape, the dim morning light glossing over the surface to gleam gold. A pair of red eyes peered from a black mask at the top, and as Kane watched, a gash of a mouth slid open, revealing rows and rows of neat pin-sharp teeth.

Kane couldn't speak. On either side of yamask, two arms appeared, the four limbs together nebulous, though translucent. Its two left arms extended, four fingers sprouting from each stump.

"Yamask?" Kane could hardly get the question out. When the pokémon before him nodded, its entire body rocking forwards with the motion, like a pendulum, Kane had to grab onto the sink again to regain his balance.

He knew hardly anything about… pokémon evolution. Before Rina's disappearance, he had been like any child, reading up on everything pokémon-related, as befit a young trainer-to-be. But after Elder Fuji's acceptance, he had no time for pokémon research or training. His days were filled reading up on all things religious, querying the Elder whenever the opportunity called for it.

Kane didn't even know what yamask _was. _What had his partner turned into? Was it still even his yamask?

Even as he thought the question, he knew it stupid. Of course it was his pokémon. Ghost pokémon were notoriously shy creatures. If a strange, wild yamask-thing had been about his room, it would have eaten him long before now.

Kane shuddered. He had heard tales of pokémon devouring humans. How could he not, with Lavender as his hometown? Even the concept had crossed his mind when Rina... died.

Muttering a rapid prayer, Kane forced himself out of the bathroom – yamask floating out of the way, hands still held out in reassurance – and sat heavily down on the bed. His earlier notion of awakening from a deep sleep seemed impossible. Kane felt utterly drained.

As he sat there, mulling over what to do, something dark flashed in his peripheral vision.

Kane jumped and looked about him wildly. His room was empty, save for him and yamask. Dreary morning light bathed the room in a faded pink-yellow hue. His belongings lay at the foot of his bed, neatly arranged.

He was suddenly aware that he was still dripping wet. Kane got to his feet hastily, tugging off the sopping garments. Yamask watched as he went back into the bathroom and started running the bath, shaking out his robe and hanging it over the bare shower curtain rail.

As Kane submerged himself in the lukewarm water, his eyes travelled to yamask, who was drifting silently in the doorway of the bathroom, its red gaze staring resolutely ahead. He wondered if yamask was praying. Kane ducked his head underwater, rubbing his hands over his bald scalp. He held his breath for as long as he could, deaf and blind in this warm universe.

When he broke the surface, Kane couldn't stop the thought that flashed across his mind: _And so, mew was born anew._

* * *

The foyer of the motel was dusty, the carpet an odd sludge-coloured rag that might have once been red, an unashamedly early-21st century style to the wallpaper and light fixtures. The counter was manned by a middle-aged man with a ponytail. He was flicking through a magazine, not watching the television playing behind him.

Kane approached the counter, his rucksack slung over one shoulder, and yamask hovering at the other. Kane had thought they might have some trouble getting out of the room – yamask was now three times as big as it had been previously – though his pokémon had merely dissolved through the door. He was also hesitant to bring up the state of the bathroom. Kane had attempted to tidy it up after his bath, sweeping the bits of broken glass up and screwing the tap knobs back on. As a result, the bathroom was somewhat clean, although the fluorescent tube was blown and the mirror was completely broken. He'd lit a candle afterwards and prayed for a good fifteen minutes to cleanse himself. Kane kept seeing something dark flash in the corners of his eyes.

"Good morning," he greeted politely. The man glanced up and grunted, turning a page in his magazine. As Kane put the key of his room down on the counter, the logo of the Kanto news station played across the television screen.

A man and a woman sat behind a desk, grinning at the camera.

_Good morning, Kanto, and welcome to Sunrise. It's currently seven o'clock in the morning. The temperature we're looking at today will be about seventeen degrees Celsius, with some cloud cover and windy periods. There's a chance of rain later on in the day._

Down the bottom of the screen, the same words were repeated in English. Most people in Japan spoke English as well as they spoke Japanese. Back at the end of the Third War, every sign or television show or book was translated into the main languages of Europe, as well; Japan had had to accommodate a huge influx of refugees following the War, and the country had swelled in population. The government had attempted to keep each language alive, although one by one they'd fallen by the wayside. Some pockets of society spoke the old languages in the ghettos – Saffron, for example, had a small Spanish colony – though English and Japanese were expected of everyone.

_Now, onto our news stories this morning from across Japan. Mossdeep city today will be celebrating the eighty-sixth year anniversary of the successful endeavours of the Hoenn Space Project. The Mossdeep city gym leaders, twins Tate and Liza Sidera, third of their name, have announced the launch of their new shuttle, Enterprise. The shuttle will expect to launch at eleven o'clock tonight, on its way to complete the final preparations for the colonisation of the moon._

_A string of attacks on pokémon gyms in Sinnoh has prompted officials to authorise a temporary ban on pokémon battling in the northernmost region. The shock announcement came late last night, when a 'group of youths' exploded four wheezing in Eterna city gym using fire pokémon, devastating infrastructure and causing a small landslide to cover the western side of the city. We'll bring you more information as it develops –_

"You gonna get goin', kid?"

Kane tore his gaze from the television to stare at the man behind the counter. His brow was furrowed and he gave Kane a pointed glance towards the door.

Apologising hurriedly in Japanese, for that was what the man spoke, Kane stepped away and started towards the entrance.

_Finally, tonight in Rustboro, Devon Corporation is rolling out the red carpet for their annual gala. The social event of the season, elites from all over Japan are expected to attend at the behest of Devon Corporation's acting head, Mable Stone…_

Kane stepped out into the street, the muffled voices from the television dissolving in the cacophony of the main road. Early-morning commuters mechanically sped down the street, just as they had on the first morning Kane had arrived; eyes down, backs straight. Saffron was no longer the hub of business that it used to be, but habits die hard, Kane supposed.

He turned left and walked down the street, trying not to bump into anyone or get in their way. He needn't have bothered. One glance at the massive ghost pokémon floating along behind him was enough to make people veer to one side, as if he were a rock in a raging river. Kane felt uneasy. Many eyes stared a little too long at yamask – he wasn't sure whether it was because Saffron was a primarily psychic-type city, or because yamask was from Unova. Elder Fuji had given him yamask as a gift, following his acceptance into the faith. It had never bothered Kane before that he owned such a rare pokémon, but clearly, here in Saffron, it meant everything.

Although he was a little confused – people hadn't acted this way yesterday, when yamask was still… yamask – Kane didn't want to take any chances. He already knew he was a target, with his old-fashioned clothing and distinct look about him. Turning his head to one side, Kane murmured a request to his pokémon.

A block later, when Kane went to cross the street, he could no longer see his ghost pokémon. Relieved, he continued through the city, yamask following behind him, invisible.

Kane travelled for about half an hour, getting lost only once, until he finally came across his destination. The narrow building was in a street just off the main shopping district, and at the entrance of the street, people hurried along, shopping bags swinging and high heels clicking. No one glanced into this street, not when there were more important things at hand.

The building was far more run down that Kane expected. A faded sign over the double doors proclaimed that this was the _Ho-se of Div-ne W-rs-ip. _

The foyer, an eight-sided room, was colder than outside, where the autumnal sunlight barely touched the pavement and the breeze rattled his bones. On the far wall sixteen thin banners were hung, each painted with the kanji name of the pokémon it represented. Underneath each banner was a small donation box and a collection of low candles. Some had gone out, the air foggy with smoke.

Above the main banners, five additional kanji scrolls were hung. These all had a small watercolour image: regigigas, arceus, rayquaza, giratina, and… mew.

Kane made a beeline for the six banners of the dogs and birds, above which was the image of mew. He relit any of the dead candles and made a donation in each box, before praying quietly for a moment. Afterwards, he made a donation to each of the other boxes beneath the remaining deities.

Although he had never been here before, Kane knew the layout as well as he did his own home. These houses of worship never differed across any region. There was always the main foyer, which was like an entrance room, meant to symbolise purgatory. Four open doorways sprouted off from the main room, above each doorway a kanji symbol dictating which room beyond belonged to which deified group and their corresponding region.

Kane took the rightmost doorway ('Kanto and The Six') and went down a dark passage, remembering that this symbolised the journey from purgatory to his chosen heaven. The room beyond was cramped, though it served its purpose.

The ribs of the high ceiling were bare, yet carved into the six pillars of the room were statues of the three dogs on one side, the birds on the other. At the end, below a glassless hexagonal window, was a carving of mew.

Kane had been in places of worship greater than this: he'd been in buildings that were massive and constructed from sandstone, with beautiful stained-glass windows and glass sculptures of the deities. He'd been in places where congregations gathered for a mass service worshipping their gods. Kane had heard of groups in Hoenn where people drowned themselves, or buried others alive, or burned people on stakes far out at sea in rituals meant to bring them closer to purification.

His gods were not like that.

Kane knelt on the cold ground before the statue of mew, looking into its hollowly carved eyes.

When he was like this – empty, lost, yearning for fulfilment – the mew was always his guide. Prayer brought him ultimate peace, unrivalled by anything in the world. Kane didn't know what he would have done, had he not found his faith. The rest of the world seemed so small and unimportant next to the purity of mew.

Some people didn't worship only mew, however. Some thought mewtwo to be the twin of mew; this idea derived from Elder Fuji and South America, naturally. Kane didn't quite know what he thought. If mewtwo was the twin of mew, then reasonably all life had to be derived from mew. Mew was the father and mother of the world. But mewtwo's origins were only loosely based on mew's DNA. The rest of it was created by humans, and eventually destroyed by humans, a few years after the Third War. Mewtwo was created to be invincible, yet it perished. Mew was everlasting, immortal, perfection itself.

Kane realised his face was wet. He wiped away his tears and stood, humbled and cleansed by being in this house of worship and safety.

He knew he could stay the night here, if he wanted. He need only seek out the Elder in charge.

Kane turned, ready to pay his respects to the other deities of this house, when he noticed someone else was in the room.

The person near the doorway was male. His head was shaved, much like Kane's own, though his robe was not grey, but a pale brown. The fabric was lighter, as well, as if it was made for hotter temperatures. The man was possibly a little older than Kane. His face was thin, his eyes slightly wrinkled. The dominate feature of his face was his nose, which protruded like a braviary beak.

"Mew protect and bless you," Kane greeted.

"May The Six grant you strength and wisdom," the man replied. He walked over to Kane and stood looking up at the statue of mew. Up close, he was even uglier, though Kane felt he had a certain aura of calm about him. Kane wondered if the man had reached purification.

Kane made his way to the door, though as he was about to vanish into the darkness of the hallway, the man spoke suddenly.

He turned to look back at the stranger. "My apologies," Kane said, "but I did not catch -"

"Are you on your journey?" the man asked, but before Kane could answer he said: "I am sorry; it was presumptuous of me to…"

"Not at all." Kane went back to stand beside the man, his eyes drawn irresistibly to look at mew one more time. "Yes, I am on my journey. I left my hometown only yesterday."

At the man's querying look, Kane explained, "I am from Lavender town."

"Lavender," the man mused, one hand coming up to toy subconsciously with the necklace he wore. Kane hadn't noticed it before: it was a six-sided silver star, with a round crystal in the middle. When the weak candlelight caught it, the crystal gleamed all colours of the rainbow. "A strange town, many would agree. Where are you headed?"

Kane didn't mind all the questions. The man was a fellow brother; he had nothing to hide from his kin. "Celadon, I am hoping," he answered, "and then Vermillion from there. I am travelling around Kanto, then by the year's end, I will be home again."

As Kane spoke, the man listened attentively. He reminded Kane of a politician, or a journalist, noting every word uttered and filing them away. "You are a brother of my faith, I see," he commented, glancing at the statue of mew and, briefly, at Kane's still-red eyes.

"Yes." A little embarrassed, Kane quickly brushed the sleeve of his robe over his face. The man smiled. "You are devout; this is good. There are too few young people in the faith, these days."

Kane didn't know what to say to that. They stood there for a heartbeat, both looking up at mew.

"I will leave you to your prayers," Kane said, moving back down the aisle towards the doorway. "Goodbye."

"Here."

The man had laid a gentle hand on Kane's arm. He was holding out another necklace, a replica of the one he wore around his neck. Kane smiled politely, but did not take it. "It is very kind of you," he said, "but I have no need for something like that. I do not believe in many worldly possessions."

"Think of it as a gift," the man insisted softly, pressing the cool necklace into Kane's hand. "I too believe that one should own little, but it has brought me clarity in times of strife. It may be only a trinket… Please, a gift."

Kane blinked, but uncurled his fist to look at the necklace, the light sliding off the silver. It was beautiful. "What does it mean? The shape of it," he clarified.

"See here." The man stepped closer to Kane, a slender finger indicating each point as he spoke. "The points of the star represent The Six. In the middle, there is the crystal, which is mew. Mew is the centre of the universe. All beings revolve around its grace."

"And where do we, humans, fit into it?" Kane found himself quite enamoured with the necklace; the symbolism was pious and meaningful. He was fine with candles and incense, but this necklace seemed to serve as a touchstone: a reminder of one's faith, even when candles and incense were not at hand. It was like a prayer, there at all times.

The man took the necklace gently from Kane's hand and turned it over. On the back, the outline of a small circle had been carved into the silver, parallel to the crystal on the other side. "The circle represents us. We are shadows of mew, its devoted servants and children. Mew guides our steps, knows our path, and lights our way. It is with us always, forever, until the end of time."

* * *

**A/N **If you're confused about the whole religion thing, I'm sorry. I got a bit confused myself and couldn't really make up my mind and then I had to sit down and really figure things out and make them like TOTES LEGIT. I'll explain what I have in my mind briefly.

Basically, each region has a trio of legendary pokemon/gods, right? Kanto has 'The Six', which are the three birds and dogs, and they are ordered around by mew, who is ultimately divine. In Johto, you have lugia and ho-oh, and they also have 'The Six' - Johto and Kanto are so close to one another, their religions kind of melt into one another, with only minor local differences. Hoenn has the three golems and groudon and kyogre, and they former are ruled over by regigigas and the latter by rayquaza. Sinnoh has the three lake guardians, dialga, and palkia, and all of them are bossed around by arceus, with giratina as kind of a shadowy overlord. Giratina, though, is a new addition to Sinnoh religion, as when Europe fell, Japan took in like a lot of refugees, and for Sinnoh, that meant a lot of middle-eastern people. I'm a bit hazy about this, but I'm drawing a parallel between giratina and the old Egyptians gods like Horus, Anubis, etc. Hey, it looks Egyptian-y to me.

Unova is a totally different bag, but as Kane explained, their religion is divided between the 'old' (South American/Native American almost) and the 'new' (i.e. the muskateer pokemon, which remind me of the Spanish inquisition and the slave trade and stuff like that). When it comes to the mew/South America connection, I'm just white-washing over that and gonna say that YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIND OUT i.e. I'm not entirely sure yet and I'll get back to you.

I sure hope you're enjoying everything so far. (: I'm very addicted to writing this, I must say. I have exams in two days, I kid you not, but I've been updating this instead.


	7. lolita

**MABLE STONE**

* * *

Mable could hardly wait for tonight. Everything had to be perfect for the annual gala of Devon Corporation. If all went well, the gala would set a new standard for the rest of the Hoenn season; everything, from the music to the fashion, would be mimicked. Furthermore, not only was it a chance for Mable to show off her flawless party planning, but it'd help show all the crusty old men on Devon's board that she was running the show better than her father. When she'd been named acting head, so many fingers were wagged Mable thought that the board must think her a misbehaving lillipup.

She'd left Devon earlier than usual in order to get ready for tonight. The doors opened at seven thirty, but only the lesser aristocrats would be there on time. Mable had her secretary alert the media a week ahead, and a big-shot Hoenn television talk show was covering the event. Mable planned to arrive at about eight fifteen. Not too early, not too late. Perfect.

Mable lay back in the bath, the steam rising from the hot water in beautiful smoky waves. Her beauty team were milling around the expansive, marbled room. Sculptures and crystal chandeliers and exotic plants were in abundance, as well as floor length mirrors with delicate lights serving as frames, and counters covered in an array of expensive makeup. In the midst of all this was a gleaming claw-foot bath, in which Mable reclined luxuriously.

The pedicurist wordlessly held up two nail polish bottles. Mable gestured languidly at the left one; a stunning 4-carat gold number. Nothing was going to be spared for tonight.

As her nails were filed and primped, Mable watched the rest of her team arranging her clothes and makeup and light dinner. One of her beauty team approached her with a silver platter of blood orange segments and a tall glass of stantler milk. The latter was a delicacy, a new fad amongst _her people. _

Smirking to herself, Mable took the glass.

She knew herself to be utterly spoilt. She knew that some people around Japan went hungry – and that definitely wasn't a surprise, even after all these years; the population of this country was bursting at the seams – but _really, _what was she to do? Did starving trainers want glasses of stantler milk? She took a sip. No, they did not.

Mable wasn't entirely heartless; she did understand what people were going through. That was why tonight's gala was going to be such a surprise.

She'd be planning for months. Mable needed something explosive, something to demonstrate to everyone that she was here to stay, at the head of the wondrous Devon-Stone empire. Her father may be dying, but Mable didn't have to think about that. She'd figured out that the way to make the eventual… passing… easier, would be if she just kept going at full-steam. Managing Devon on a day-to-day basis was excruciatingly boring, but Mable knew that if she went off shopping or on cruises to Sinnoh, as so many of her other trust-fund buddies did, when her father did eventually die, she wouldn't be able to pick up the pieces.

Mable's father was the one man in the world who understood her completely. She couldn't lose him just yet. She needed to make him proud.

As the pedicurist and manicurist dried her nails with an activated nail-dryer, Mable bit her lip in sudden hesitation. What if tonight was all a bit… too much? What if she was trying too hard?

"Someone get me Steven," she heard herself command. Mable didn't want to think about what this meant. About how much she relied on her grey-haired uncle.

Mable rose from the bath, attendants hurrying around her to use hand-held drying mirrors on her body. Once dry, she was helped into a semi-sheer silk robe that showed nothing and everything.

When she was seated at the makeup station, one of her team gently toning her face in roselia-petal water and another setting her damp hair in self-heating curlers, Steven walked in.

Her uncle, as ever, was dressed in his laboratory coat, though Mable had ordered him an expensive, authentic German 1900's-inspired suit for tonight. She couldn't help herself; she was drawn to history.

"What." Steven's voice was toneless, barely rising at the end to give any indication he'd asked a question. Mable bristled – if her beauty team heard his rudeness, they might get it in their heads to do the same – but one of the curlers burnt her scalp and she yelped instead.

As Mable berated the hair girl, who looked close to tears, Steven glanced about the room, taking in the sheer opulence and sense of _wealth _it exuded. Reluctantly – he doubted whether Mable would give up her tirade for a minute more, at least – he wandered over to his niece and took a swivel chair beside her, crossing his legs somewhat effeminately. On instinct, Steven batted away another member of Mable's beauty team, who had approached him with a fine-tooth comb and a tin of bryl-cream.

Mable noticed the movement. "You have to let them clean you up," she said, half in admonishment and half disinterested: an attendant was actively smearing moisturizer on her face. "Did you get the suit I sent you?"

"Yes, I did."

"Well?" Mable was rather pleased with herself.

"I am not wearing it."

"_Steven._" Mable pulled away from the bottle of moisturizer, a great gloop on her cheek not yet rubbed-in. "I need you to wear that suit. It's _really_ important."

Her uncle didn't reply. Mable turned away in a huff.

They sat in silence for a while, the only sounds the soothing voices of Mable's beauty team as they murmured about colour palettes and theme. Out of the corner of her eye, Mable could see Steven was getting restless. One glance at the clock told her that he needed to start getting ready right this instant, especially if he was escorting her down the red carpet.

Steven cleared his throat. "Did you want anything else?"

Mable opened her mouth to say something, but shut it. "Just go get ready," she muttered, pretending to be occupied with choosing an eye shadow.

Steven threw his hands up in exasperation, got to his feet, and stalked out of the room, the glass doors sliding closed behind him with a _whoosh._

_Tonight will be perfect, _she reassured herself, _nothing is over the top; nothing is gaudy or middle-class or anything other than wonderful._

But she wished she'd had Steven's opinion.

* * *

It was approximately seven forty by the time Mable was ready. All the thoughts of lament she'd had earlier (about Steven, the gala, gaudiness) had disappeared from her mind about an hour and a half ago.

She felt _glorious._

Mable didn't think she'd looked as beautiful in her entire life as she did now. It brought her down a little to think that this was all achieved through makeup and two hours of preparation… But she looked so illuminating!

Her hair had been curled tightly, then brushed out in the Old Hollywood style of mid-Third War time. Typical to the Stone family, her hair was a grey-toned ash blonde, though not prettily silver. Normally, Mable thought her hair looked as if she'd aged prematurely – indeed, the same could be said for all members of her family – but tonight it fell it soft waves to her shoulder blades, catching the light and reminding her of blurry monochromatic photographs of old-time actresses.

Mable had found her dress after months of searching beforehand. A deep, sophisticated mossy green, the square neckline and three-quarter length sleeves added a glamorous touch to the floor-sweeping hem. Tiny iridescent baby yanma wings covered the dress, making her seem as if she were made of light.

One of her fashion team came forward, holding up two fur stoles. "The shiny eevee fur, or the cincinno?"

Mable considered the two and then chose the white cincinno fur stole. It was impossibly soft, the creature bred specifically for the purpose of the fur trade. Amusingly, there were two pokémon Unova couldn't wait to get rid of: audino and the mincinno evolutionary family. Both were common pests to Unova, so the government happily sent them out to Japan in massive shipments at a ridiculous price. And the Japanese aristocracy ate them up.

"The car is waiting for you, Miss Stone."

Mable raised a hand in acknowledgment to the servant by the door, not looking up from inspecting her small jewelled handbag. Patiently, the room waited. Once their mistress looked up, everyone burst into a flurry of motion; they ushered Mable through the Devon building from the very top floor, where her apartments were, down to the ground level in minutes.

When Mable stepped out into the street, the sleek limousine hovering quietly at the curb, she only had to look around once for Steven. He got out of the car, holding the door open with one hand, his face fixed in a look of boredom.

"Thank you, Steven," Mable said primly, trying to climb into the car with as much dignity as her tight dress and high heels would allow. By the door, her beauty team waved, as if she were setting off on a voyage across the world.

"We're late," Steven snapped in response, getting in after his niece and slamming the door shut.

The limousine pulled away from the curb soundlessly, swiftly floating down the massive front driveway that lead up to Devon's towering building and into the busy road beyond. Mable gave it five pleasant minutes before she spoke.

"Where's the suit?"

* * *

_The air is charged here at the Hanna Stone Memorial Ballroom, with elite members of Japanese society waiting with baited breath for Devon Corporation's acting head, Mable Stone._

_I'm coming to you live from in front of the Stone Ballroom. We've already seen gym leaders from across Japan turn up, all looking very elegant and fashionable. So far, the gown of the night has been taken by Valentina Tholomyés, with a stunning French-inspired strapless dress, embroidered with juvenile clamperl pearls. Actually, it seems that many of the gowns, and indeed those wearing them, are going back to their heritage. Miss Tholomyés, for example, daughter of the late Hearthome gym leader, Fantina, traces her roots back to France. It seems to be an overarching theme, so the question remains: What _is_ the theme Mable Stone has arranged for tonight?_

_It's all a bit of a mystery, but we'll keep updating you as the guests for tonight arrive… Wait. Hold on there, Bob, I think we're… yes! Ladies and gentlemen, our loyal viewers of Jubilife Society TV, here is the much-anticipated arrival of Mable Stone, the organiser of tonight's exclusive gala!_

* * *

It would be an exaggeration to say that _the crowd went wild _as Mable stepped out of the limousine, but it was definitely a warm reception.

A light drizzle had started to fall on their way from Devon to the ballroom. Steven clambered out of the car behind her, almost knocked out of the way as a servant hurried to protect Mable with an umbrella.

As if flicking a switch, Mable lit up, her smile dazzling. The bedraggled, though decently sized crowd flanking the red carpet huddled closer to the boundary line, cameras flashing and excited reporters babbling questions at her as she passed. A hovering camera panned slowly around Mable; she turned and winked at the lens.

It was over so quickly. Before she knew it, Mable was standing in the gigantic lobby of the Stone Ballroom, letting an attendant brush a light coat of powder over her nose and someone else gently rearrange her hair.

Steven stomped in after her, somewhat damper than she. He fussed with the lapels of his awful tuxedo jacket. Mable noted that it was the same outfit he'd worn to her last gala.

"Ready?" she asked him, not bothering to make her tone anything less than icy. If he was going to _ruin her night _by not fitting in with her theme, by mew she was going to make it unpleasant for him.

Steven begrudgingly let an attendant run a comb through his gelled grey hair before offering Mable his arm.

The double doors at the end of the lobby opened automatically, swinging forward to welcome them into the massive ballroom Mable had spent the better half of a year organising.

It definitely paid off.

Her guests milled about the room like brightly coloured birds, each dress more fabulous and expensive than the last. Some pokémon followed their masters and mistresses dutifully, sleek fur or gleaming scales almost competing with the overawing lavishness of the ballroom. The floor was white marble; the walls lined with magnificent windows overlooking private gardens; the ceiling dotted with live chandelure, casting a warm, fuzzy glow over the otherwise modern room. Servants stepped lightly through the crowd, each boasting a rich tray of alcohol or appetizers and an exotic heritage; Mable had made sure each servant individually represented the many cultures that now made up Japan's population. It was a strategic move; one of her better ideas, she thought smugly.

The other half of the room was separated by a thin gold rope, and beyond that, numerous round tables were clustered – the space was designed to give an air of intimacy in otherwise what was such a formal setting. A group of musicians were in one corner, their fingers tripping over instruments, playing a beautiful slow jazz piece.

As Mable descended the brief flight of stairs to the main floor, her guests applauded. She smiled and simpered and waved her free hand, saying in cosily alternating Japanese and English to people as she passed: "You're too kind, really, oh, thank you."

Steven didn't let go of her arm. Soon, Mable had a champagne glass in one hand and was engaged in a conversation with a member of the Japanese government. She didn't know what the young Korean woman did, though she asked all the right questions and flirted a little, and the woman walked off looking pleased as punch in three minutes flat.

The first hour went by in no time, Mable slipping into the stage-perfect persona she'd created during her debutante season when she was fifteen. She talked to gym leaders and elite members, politicians and military recruits, diplomats and fashion designers. Almost every conversation began with _I love your dress _and Mable would titter and go _this old thing?_

She'd be lying to herself if she said she was having a bad time – it wasn't that at all. On the contrary, Mable enjoyed occasions such as this with a sadistic sense of humour. She liked watching people plaster on smiles and air their graces and name-drop like mad. It was as if they were all a part of a conspiracy, or a secret club. It was thrilling.

Steven wasn't having a good time, that much she knew. With each passing conversation, the weight on her left arm grew, until eventually her uncle muttered some excuse and disappeared into the crowd. Mable was slightly embarrassed – he'd left just as she had started talking to Valentina Tholomyés, a vapid gossip and up-coming contender in the Sinnoh elite four.

As Valentina murmured something about pokémon training, sprinkling her words with delicate French asides and laughing softly and self-deprecatingly at herself, Mable felt her patience start to wear a little thin. The first course could not come soon enough. She knew that these young men and women her age were not her friends – no one had friends when you were this wealthy. But sometimes, when she babbled on about shoes or a modern political issue she knew next to nothing about, she wanted to look at her conversation partner and feel truly _pleased. _Pleased that this person in front of her was enjoying her company; that they were laughing genuinely at her jokes or that they were flirting for the simple pleasure of it, not for some twisted battle of dominance.

Mable glanced around for Steven.

One of the servants must have misconstrued this action, because the next moment she knew the music was swelling cheerfully, and people were heading off towards the dining tables.

Mable moved with the crowd, dodging past people to get to her table in the very middle. As she sat down, she reminded herself of Louis XIV, the 'sun king' of Absolutist France – how that physically diminutive man built his bedroom in Versailles right in the middle of his palace. He was the centre of the universe. She took a sip of the Italian wine that had appeared at her elbow. _Well, so was she._

She'd chosen the members of her table with great consideration. It was important that she be surrounded with those who would support her announcement she'd make later in the evening.

As such, Mable had selected the three people responsible for the funding of Devon's Big Three – two women and a man, all high-up in the Japanese government. She'd also chosen the champions from each region. It was a strange ego-boost to see that some of her table members had returned their pokémon when in her presence.

Unfortunately, the leading members of Japan's United Government couldn't make her gala, which ruffled Mable's feathers.

"Your gala is a great success, Mable," Lance Scale murmured as he took the seat to her left. "Sorry – _Miss _Stone."

Mable giggled. She liked Lance a lot; he was an incredibly strong pokémon trainer and was still the Indigo League champion, although he was nearing fifty. Word was that his cousin, Clair, would take over when he was finished. Mable didn't like that idea at all. Thankfully, the brattish Welsh woman wasn't here tonight – there was some 'crises' at Blackthorn (although Mable privately thought it was just a flimsy excuse). She and Mable did not get along. What was it with her and other young women? Mable wondered absent-mindedly. They were like fire and ice.

"How's everything at the League?" Mable asked Lance as the first course was served: a light buneary broth with shallots, coriander, and croutons.

"Very well, actually. Thank you for asking." Lance's voice was so pleasant to listen to. His Welsh accent lilted upwards at the end of sentences, the sing-song rhythm enough to charm a gyarados, one would imagine. "Although I did not know you were so interested in pokémon. Could it be," he teased, "that that girl Oskana has changed your ways?"

Mable coloured. Most of the league members knew about her failure as a pokémon trainer. The teasing was all in good fun – until someone she didn't like started ribbing her. "Oskana can't even change her clothes," Mable retorted cattily, referring to the Rustboro gym leader's efficient failure at fashion. "But tell me, what news from the League? Has anyone given you a run for your money, lovely Lance?"

The older man grinned wryly at her. When Mable was younger, she'd had a terrible crush on him – though who hadn't? Lance was still as charming and gallant as he had been at nineteen, fresh from a championship win. In later years her affections had waned and… strayed… though she liked to tease him anyway.

Before Lance could lurch into a thoughtful account of the past few challengers, Steven slipped into the seat on her right. Mable watched him out of the corner of her eye. Her uncle grabbed the napkin and smoothed it over his lap, taking up his spoon and, without making any eye contact with the rest of the table, started on his broth. Mable listened to Lance with absorbed attentiveness, though she was hyper-aware of Steven's presence.

_How dare he? _She could feel her hand shaking, so she busied herself with her wine glass. _First he dashes off when I'm talking to Valentina – who's bound to have posted her witty observations to the Internet already – then he comes in ten minutes late to the first course, without _any _apology whatsoever. _

_Why do I have to be related to him?_

After a few minutes, Cynthia Mori sat down on the opposite side of the table.

Mable felt herself freeze for a moment, though she forced herself to take another sip of wine and give a tinkling laugh in relation to Lance's story.

The older woman was no longer the Sinnoh champion. She, along with Steven, had been involved with the pokémon alliance back in the Third War. Dumped from the new league – many of the other champions and gym leaders had remained neutral during the war – Cynthia was now a kooky historian living holed up in her family cabin in Celestic town. Mable's little birds had whispered that Cynthia was trying to get a visa to move over to Unova; specifically Undella.

Washed up like her dear uncle, Cynthia looked perpetually exhausted. Her once-luxurious hair (Mable had Googled her) was now streaked with silver, and was cropped to just above her shoulders.

Mable tossed some of her own curls over her shoulder and laughed again. _What had Steven wanted with that old hag?_

Their half-full broths were swooped away from the table by silent servants. Mable had hardly touched hers, though Lance had managed to eat all of his.

"Miss Stone, we are delighted by the success of the pokémon Translator."

Mable turned her attention to one of the Japanese government officials on the other side of Steven. The rest of the table continued to murmur diplomatic conversation, the background noise a gentle combination of trailing piano keys and feminine laughter. Mable smiled indulgently at the man who had spoken, a stout middle-aged man with military bearing and apparent Japanese heritage. He inclined his head at her smile.

"I thank you for your patronage," Mable gushed breathily. She completely ignored her uncle, who sat uncomfortably between them. "Devon could not have achieved such success without our government's support."

Placated, the man bowed his head again and spoke a rapid stream of Japanese; Mable laughed. She hadn't caught half of what he said, but she assumed it to be some half-hearted attempt at flirtation. Mable's origins were German, her grandmother Hanna Stone was the namesake of the Memorial Ballroom, although her grandfather and father were Japanese. Still, she preferred English. Somewhat inspired by Valentina Tholomyés, a few years ago she'd tried muttering German comments in conversation, though her native language was not as musical as Valentina's, and she'd given up in embarrassment.

When she looked back at her meal – the second course was a platter of steamed octillery and a side dish of remoraid caviar – she almost missed Steven getting up and leaving the table. Mable whipped around to watch her uncle disappear between the full, chattering tables. One eye she kept on Cynthia, though the other woman was in deep conversation with Hispanic Wallace Rivera, the Unova-hosted champion of Hoenn. It wasn't uncommon that Japan sent some pokémon trainers to Unova and vice versa – much like in medieval times, when young men would be given away as 'wards', the same ritual was performed now; but these days the act was generally of goodwill and a suggestion of continued peacetime between the remaining two superpowers, and not a veiled threat, as it had been in the fourteenth century.

Without thinking of how this might look, Mable put down her wine glass, coolly excused herself from her pleasant guests, and stalked out after her uncle.

Dress swishing on the marble floor, Mable went into the empty foyer. She glanced around, the entrance room cold and dark after the ballroom. Behind her, she could feel the warmth of the chandelure, the sweet strings of the band, the pretty conversation of the elite. She had a sudden urge to forget about her petulant uncle and return to her guests – but a cough from one of the shadowy adjoining corridors gave her pause.

Gathering up the skirt of her dress, Mable darted to her left. The corridor was tall and made of glass, the ceiling sloped so heavy splatters of rain fell like gunfire before bouncing harmlessly off. Beyond the glass wall, the street was deserted, the journalists and cameras long since packed away.

She fervently wished she'd forked out a bit more to have the rest of the Memorial Building heated and lighted. Mable shivered as she stepped out of the corridor and into a round room made of glass. The view was no longer of the street, but of the private gardens that surrounded the building. In the middle of the shadowy expanse was a fountain, though it was only dimly lit, casting up an odd glow over the marble underside of the entwined gorebyss and huntail.

On the right curved glass wall, one of the several door-come-windows had been opened. In the gap, watching the rain, was the silhouette of a man.

Marble knew Steven anywhere. He was a tall man, slender and muscular in his youth, though now at his age sported curved shoulders and an unhealthy tendency towards underweight. He often slouched, frowning and generally appearing unsatisfied. Sometimes that made Mable want to please him even more. Steven's hair had been gelled down for tonight – the one allowance he had made for her outfit, Mable could see; he looked very Second World War country gentleman – though normally it sprang every which way, the grey tufts rumpled from dragging his hands through it in exasperation.

As Mable stood there, quietly drinking in his figure, she was surprised when a waft of cigarette smoke drifted towards her.

Cigarettes were very popular, that was true. Medical advancements meant that people could essentially do what they wanted without repercussion. This was generally only a privilege afforded by the wealthy, however.

Still, Mable had never known her uncle to smoke before. She went to stand beside him.

The rain outside was hammering down. The city lights were muffled by the onslaught; the garden was wet and black, like an undiscovered jungle. Mable looked down and watched the rain splatter upon the concrete to join a rushing rivulet that hurtled into the trimmed grass.

She looked at Steven's profile. His aquiline nose, broken, he'd told her once, after a pokémon battle, stood out starkly against the white stone of the building. He held the cigarette up and drew in a deep cloud of the smoke, exhaling heavily through his nose. Soon, he turned his head slightly to catch her eye.

"How was the second course?" he asked smoothly. Anyone who didn't know Steven might have said that this question sounded utterly genuine. Mable ignored him and said, "What did you want with Mori?"

Steven breathed a stream of smoke out into the rain. "Shouldn't you be with your guests?"

"What about Mori?" she countered.

Her uncle took his time tapping the cigarette ash onto the concrete. Eventually, he said, somewhat sadly: "Cynthia just gave me some news I hoped very much not to hear."

"What do you mean?" Mable shivered as a gust of rain blew inwards, spattering her beautiful dress. Wordlessly, Steven shrugged off his jacket and handed it to her. Just as Mable thought he was about to answer her question, he took another drag, then crushed the cigarette beneath the toe of his shoe.

"You need to go back inside," he commented, giving her a meaningful look. "It is your party, after all."

"Steven, tell me what you talked about!" Mable winced as soon as the plea left her lips. She tried so hard to sound sophisticated, but whenever she was with her uncle, she seemed to revert back to childhood habits.

"Why do you call me 'Steven'?" her uncle asked mildly, leaning forward and pulling the tall window-door closed. Immediately, Mable felt a wave of warm relief wash over her. "Why not call me uncle?"

"Stop changing the subject," Mable muttered, though her tone held no venom. She yawned and instantly felt guilty. Steven smiled at her. His face was half-hidden in darkness.

"Come on." Putting a thin arm around her shoulders, they started walking across the round room, passing by the illuminated fountain. Mable hesitated and then laid her head against Steven's shoulder. His arm tightened.

From the ballroom, someone screamed.

* * *

Heart straining against her breast like a rapidash at the starting gate, Mable fled up the corridor and through the lobby, Steven right beside her. They burst into the main ballroom, the wash of heat and music almost drowning their senses.

Breathing heavily, Mable feverishly scanned the ballroom, searching for a gun-wielding lunatic or a rampaging ursaring or _something other than what she saw._

In the middle of the room lay Valentina Tholomyés. The young woman was laughing hard, her chest heaving. In her hand was an empty champagne glass.

"_Merde!_" Valentina exclaimed in delight, giggling as a comely young man with wavy chestnut hair helped her up. "I am so clumsy! Silly me, silly me. I nearly killed myself, _je suis tellement maladroite! _I'm sorry, I'm sorry – here, get me another." She thrust the glass at the young man.

Mable exhaled. _Merde, _indeed. Relief, however, was quickly replaced with irritation. Why must her guests be such pigs? At some of the other tables she could see some people laughing too hard at Valentina's blunder, faces red and glasses empty.

She felt like tearing out her hair. People needed to be _conscious _to hear her great announcement. She couldn't have half of them rolling under the tables.

Glancing about the room – no one seemed to have noticed their arrival, thank mew – Mable ripped off Steven's jacket and shoved it at him. Back straight, she threw a great wave of curls over one shoulder, and marched into the fray. Stepping lightly around tables and guests, some of which were now ferrying between tables, swapping seats, and happily lolling over one another in earnest conversation, Mable made her way to the biggest table in the middle.

She was thankful to see that her most exclusive guests were reasonably sober. Most of them were peering over heads to watch Valentina's clumsy walk back to her table. Lance was chewing his way through the third course. Cynthia looked morose.

Mable picked up her glass and took a healthy swig of wine for courage. Steven hovered at her side, putting his jacket back on and pointedly avoiding eye contact with Cynthia.

Suddenly incensed at her uncle's pathetic behaviour, Mable signalled to the maître d', who made a quiet gesture to the band.

The only sound in the room the tinkling of glasses and cutlery and gradually the conversation ground to a polite halt, all eyes fixed on their lovely host.

Mable smiled around her, basking in the attentive glow.

"Good evening," she started, "I thank you all so _much _for attending my little get-together." The crowd chuckled appreciatively. "I'm delighted to see so many of you dressed up for the occasion. You might have been wondering what tonight's theme was…" _Of course they're wondering, they're going to copy it for their own pathetic parties, _"I'm pleased to announce that tonight's theme is… multiculturalism."

The only thing Mable was thankful of in that moment was her flawless pronunciation. She was oblivious to the surprised murmuring that swept the crowd.

"Indeed, tonight wasn't just another gala for our upcoming season. In fact, I had another idea in mind." Mable took a deep breath, nearly bursting with pleasure. "We live in Japan, victorious and bountiful, our wonderful nation of many cultures. Devon Corporation believes that our country should fully embrace the colourful background of our society -"

A volley of chatter broke her speech. Mable whipped around to the source; a table in the back of the room, where a group of guests were huddled around a holo pad.

The maître d' swept up to the table and bent his head to murmur some admonishment, but before he did, the portly woman holding the holo pad gave a terrified shriek and dropped the device on the table.

"_What _is going on?" Mable barked. _Why won't anyone listen? _she thought desperately, _why isn't anyone paying attention?_

A man at the offending table leapt to his feet as the woman gave another shriek and covered her eyes. He stared at Mable, his expression terrified. "The gyms," he rasped, "they're attacking the gyms!"

The room burst into conversation. Distressed, Mable turned every which way, watching as people brought out holo pads of their own, fingers rapidly moving across the translucent, paper-thin surface.

"Listen to me!" she cried, almost in tears, "I haven't finished my speech!"

"Mable." She looked at Steven, who had put his hand comfortingly on her forearm. "Maybe just -"

"_Mew help us!_"

"By Arceus -"

"Mable -"

"_What?_" she screamed, spinning to face her uncle.

Gravely, he held up his own holo pad. The image before her flashed and blurred, the camera obviously repeatedly being jolted out of focus. A spray of red shot across the screen, then another, followed by a great plume of flame. Human and pokémon screams echoed from the footage. The camera jerked back as smoke flooded the screen, then bobbed wildly and focused on the ground, where a mutilated human corpse lay strewn on the rubble.

Aghast, Mable grabbed the holo pad. Distantly, she was aware that the ballroom was completely silent except for the magnified sounds of a hundred streamed videos.

The camera toppled to the ground. People were rushing past, their shadows ducking in and out of the billowing smoke. Another spray of gunfire cut through the grey screen. Suddenly, the person wielding the gun stepped into the camera's view.

It was a young man with a shaved head, dirt and sweat smeared across his startlingly feminine face. He raised the gun and splattered his surroundings with another jet of bullets. Then, another boy with a gun rushed past the camera. He paused briefly next to the other boy, yelling something, before dashing off screen. He sported a massive mohawk streaked with ash. His bare chest was dotted with blood. The first boy looked around him, setting off a volley of gunfire. As he span about, his eyes shot to the camera.

Mable felt a chill run down her spine as the youth aimed the weapon at the camera and pressed the trigger and the screen was filled with static.


End file.
